


Sweet Dee Bags Charlie

by lydiamrtin



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Eating Disorders, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, canon divergence after "the gang misses the boat", if other recurring characters make an appearance i'll add them, this will be charlie/dee centric but the other members of the gang will be involved as well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9343310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiamrtin/pseuds/lydiamrtin
Summary: He’s being tossed through the water, limbs flailing for dear life, and Dee is now towering over him with that snide glare of hers. She’s climbing higher, higher, higher, until she passes through the roof and towers on straight to the sun. Maybe she’ll make it there. She probably will





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing Dee registers when she blearily blinks into consciousness that fateful Saturday morning is the heavy stench of tequila hanging in the air. Immediately the all too familiar throbbing pain of a hangover hits her, hard, and her face scrunches as she groans and rolls to bury her face in the pillow. Her knee brushes up against something solid, and a jolt of shock runs through her. 

_ Charlie.  _

The two are cramped side by side on his pullout couch, and Charlie’s taking up  _ much  _ more than his fair share of the bed. His head is lolled to the side at what appears to be quite an uncomfortable angle, and he’s snoring, a small trail of drool dribbling down his chin. 

Dee clutches the left side of her head as the throbbing intensifies. Just one look at a shirtless Charlie is all it takes for everything from the night before to come screaming back to her. 

 

\----------------

 

_ Dee doesn’t know who moved first the second time they went in to kiss. Charlie initiated the first time, and then almost instantly they sprang from each other like they had been electrocuted. Giggling like children, laughing it off as if it were a joke though Dee didn’t find it funny in the slightest, was only their natural reaction because this wasn’t what they did. This wasn’t  _ them.

_ All she knows is she spent an eternity staring at him once their nervous laughter died down again, until some force pushed them back together and their lips collided once more.  _

_ She felt the softness of his lips move against her own, and she breathed in deeply as his stubble tickled her jaw.  _

_ She moved her arms from dangling uselessly at her sides to scratching softly through his hair, down his cheeks, pulling him impossibly closer to her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and firmly thumbed the skin above her hip bone.  _

_ She walked him backwards towards the coach, sitting him down and straddling his lap. He ran his hands up her shirt, caressing her back and pawing at the material like he wanted to take it off but didn’t know how. He placed a hand on her thigh, gently rubbing up and down- _

_ “Hey, guys?” _

_ Charlie literally threw Dee off his lap, and she landed on the ground with a thud.  _

_ “Hey, I was- Uh . . . Dee, why are you on the floor?” It was Mac, shirtless.  _

_ She groaned in pain and annoyance. Mostly annoyance.  _

_ “Because- Because she-” Charlie sputtered-  _

_ “Because I’m looking for my ring. I dropped my ring,” Dee improvised.  _

_ “What kind of ring? An  _ engagement _ ring?” Mac chuckled at his own feeble attempt at a joke. “That ship has long since sailed, don’t you think?” _

_ “What?” Now she was just exasperated.  _

_ “Not that kind of a ring,” interjected Charlie. “Just a normal, non-engagement ring. She dropped it a couple minutes ago; honestly, it could be anywhere. We might be here a while, cause rings are pretty hard to find, dude.”  _

_ Now Mac looked skeptical. “Okay then . . . Well, enough about Dee’s expired oats, because, frankly, it’s getting old. I have a real problem on my hands. Do either of you happen to have any condoms?” _

_ “What?” Charlie sounded completely shocked. “Bro, why would I-” _

_ “I know, believe me I don’t want to do this, you know how much I hate condoms!” Mac was quite possibly the stupidest person to ever have walked this earth. “But Dusty’s a  _ stripper.” _ He lowered his voice. “She could have all sorts of shit.”  _

_ Dee had to summon every fibre of her being to prevent herself from walking over to him at that very second and punching the living shit out of him.  _

_ Charlie closed his eyes. “I don’t have any condoms. Okay? When have I-” He shook his head. “Mac, if you want to have sex with her so badly, then just go out and buy some.” _

_ It worked. Mac’s brows furrowed and his arms crossed.   _

_ “Well then I- I would have to-” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. Just forget it.” He turned away and headed back into the bedroom, closing the shutters with a little more force than necessary.  _

_ “What’s he trying to- This is  _ my _ apartment!” exclaimed Dee. _

_ “It’s amazing that he doesn’t realize just how obvious he is,” Charlie said with a chuckle. Dee nodded vigorously in agreement. It’s easy, she realized. Talking with Charlie didn’t hurt like it did with the other guys.  _

_ “I mean,” he continued, like they hadn’t just been sitting and making out on the couch, “I’m genuinely curious as to how long he’ll keep up this act. It’s unbelievable to me that he still hasn’t realized we figured it out a long time ago. Like, it’s  _ so _ natural to us now, that it’s almost funny when he tries to cover it up.”  _

_ “Yeah,” Dee agreed. “But, it’s not like we can just confront him about it or anything, because then we’d be the pushy friends accusing  _ him  _ of something he’s not. He has to come to us.”  _

_ “Yeah! He has to be ready, and he has to do it himself. We can’t, like- intervene, we just have to wait.” _

_ “Absolutely. It’s the only way it’ll stick.” _

_ “He’s just not ready yet.” _

_ “Yeah, he needs a lot more time.” _

_ “He’s not coming out of that room any time soon,” Dee decided.  _

_ “You wanna get out of here?” Charlie sounded so casual. It was unlike him. _

_ “Where do you wanna go?” _

_ “Frank’s out tonight, I got the place to myself. We can get some liquor, hang out if you want. You know, to get away from all this.” He gestured toward the bedroom.  _

_ Dee beat him to the door.  _

 

\-------------------

Dee swears her headache actually worsens once she realizes that the chances of Charlie having any kind of pain reliever in his apartment are practically nonexistent. She rubs her forehead, weighing her options. She could get dressed, slip out now, and start her day like usual: downing three tylenol right off the bat and showering to wash off the night before. Or she could stay here and wait for Charlie to wake up so they could talk about what happened last night. 

Dee can’t talk to Charlie about what happened. Conversations like that make her feel trapped inside her own skin. 

She pulls back the covers and almost facepalms. If waking up in bed next to Charlie wasn’t bad enough, now she discovers she’s wearing nothing but panties and an oversized tee shirt that’s probably Charlie’s- She smells it- Definitely Charlie’s.  _ Jesus.  _ Dee bends over the edge of the bed to look for her clothes because she cannot be seen wearing  _ Charlie’s tee shirt. _ The guys would berate her for years. 

Dee sits up. No luck. She’s about to get out of bed to continue searching for her clothes, but then Charlie stirs beside her and starts fluttering his eyelids. Great. He opens his eyes, yawning and stretching his arms above his head. 

“Dee?” he moans groggily. He looks almost surprised that she’s in bed with him. Does he not- 

“Oh god,” she says quietly. Now that he’s awake as well and discovering their current situation, Dee feels herself clamming up and her skin growing hot. 

Charlie looks down at himself, then back up at her. “What-”

Dee doesn’t know what to do. She feels herself retreating again. Back to where she was before they were alone together. “Oh. My god.”

Charlie can only stare. He’s speechless, for possibly the first time in his life. 

This is exactly what Dee didn’t want to do. “I gotta get outta here,” she mutters, standing up. “I gotta get outta here.” She sways on the spot, unprepared for the wave of dizziness that hits her. 

Charlie runs a hand through his disheveled hair, sitting up. “Wait-”

“Oh no, I won’t,” Dee grumbles, fumbling through the piles of dirty clothes on the floor looking for her pants.

“Dee, can we-”

“Shut up, Charlie!” She can feel her blood boiling, simmering with anger. Anger at Charlie for even attempting to talk to her about this, when really, Dee doesn’t even spend this much time the morning after with her  _ one night stands. _

Charlie sighs. “Look, I think-”

“No! Don’t  _ think,”  _ Dee growls, feeling her walls springing back up. It’s practically routine at this point. “Don’t do anything. Just-” She flails her arms around, agitated. 

“Well, what, am I supposed to just  _ ignore _ what just happened? Are we not gonna talk about this?” Charlie’s getting high pitched.

“No, we are not going to  _ talk  _ about this! This is insane. This is literally my worst nightmare. Oh god.” She begins pacing around in the small walking space his apartment has to offer, fending off a looming anxiety attack that is certain to hit her the instant she steps foot outside his door. 

_ “I’m  _ your worst nightmare!” Charlie laughs. “ _ You  _ crashed  _ here,  _ Dee. I didn’t ask you to stay, nor did I want you to. You overstayed your welcome and overstepped your boundaries!”

As his voice grows both louder and higher, he makes an attempt at standing up that is quickly shut down by Dee’s scream of fright.

“Oh my god, Charlie, you’re naked! Put some goddamn clothes on, for Christ’s sake!” 

“Alright, alright, just gimme a second! I’ll find some clothes because apparently I’m not allowed to be naked in  _ my  _ own apartment that  _ you  _ crashed in without telling me.”

They both know that’s not the truth. 

Dee waits with her eyes remaining firmly shut while he rummages around his trashed apartment for some clothes. 

“Okay, you can  _ look  _ now, it’s safe,” Charlie spits sarcastically. 

“Do not patronize me!” Dee exclaims shrilly. “This is not a time for you to be patronizing me.”

“Not a time for-” Charlie closes his eyes. “Look. There were  _ two _ people in that bed, alright? Now, this is crazy for me too. I- I feel like, like I’m about to go  _ nuts!” _ He squeezes his temples to emphasize his frustration. “I mean, what the  _ hell?  _ But I’m  _ trying  _ to be mature about this, a-and you’re just-”

“I’m not being mature about this?” exclaims an incredulous Dee, finally catching sight of her jeans and reaching down to pick them up. “Believe me, Charlie, right now it is taking every  _ morsel  _ of my goddamned willpower not to go absolutely fucking ballistic on you.” She practically shoves on her jeans and pulls the zipper with more aggression than necessary. 

“So, what, so you just wanna pretend like nothing happened?” 

“Damn right I do!”

“Fine! Good!” Charlie’s fired up now, and this is how Dee’s used to him. Because when he was all soft and sweet, and  . . .  _ caring, _ she didn’t know how to handle herself. She didn’t have control of the situation, and when Dee doesn’t have control, she gets hurt. 

“You’re really being like this . . .” Charlie starts pacing. “Why did I expect anything different?”

There we go. He’s back. Dee can handle the rage, the insults, the hurt. It’s all she knows. 

“Beats me,” she retaliates, tone dripping with sarcasm. “I’m out of here.” She makes for the door, no longer concerned with the fact that she’s still wearing Charlie’s tee shirt. 

“You know what? I don’t buy that,” Charlie comments. She stops and turns around. 

“Huh?”

“Yeah, your whole-” Charlie makes air quotes- “‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ vibe? I’m not buying it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” 

“I’m  _ talking  _ about your whole ‘emotionally closed off’ bullshit? It’s not you.”

Dee delivers him an icy cold glare. “I am not emotionally closed off, Charlie. I have more emotions than you could ever begin to fathom, and every single one of them is telling me to get the hell out of this dirty, rancid room as fast as my legs can carry me.” 

She steps closer to him and grabs a fistful of his bathrobe, pulling him in so that their noses are almost touching. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. The  _ second  _ I walk out that door, this is over. You better  _ believe  _ that we’re gonna be acting like nothing happened,” she snarls, almost reveling in the small glint of fear that’s appeared in Charlie’s green eyes. “If you so much as breathe a  _ word _ about this to anyone, so help me,  _ God-” _ Her body’s almost shaking with rage. “I will fucking end you.” 

She lets go of his bathrobe with a slight push, storms toward the door, and slams it shut behind her without so much as a glance back. 

 

\------------------

 

_ “Y’know, sometimes I hate Mac and Dennis. Like,  _ really _ hate them.” Dee takes another swig of the bottle and passes it to Charlie, who accepts it from her graciously. They’re sitting on Charlie’s couch bed, and it isn’t awkward or weird. They’re just two friends drinking together and complaining about their shitty friends and equally shitty lives. _

_ “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about,” Charlie agrees, and Dee thinks she should be more concerned that his tone has taken on a slur, but she isn’t.  _

_ “It’s like, sometimes I feel like they use me- But it’s just- it’s not- we’re such good friends, you know? I’m sure they’re not actually meaning to  _ use _ me. It’s kinda how they are. They’re assholes,” he continues.  _

_ Dee doesn’t want to talk about Mac and Dennis. _

_ “Do you know. . . if we’re too drunk to rhyme? We should rhyme up some more def poetry,” she suggests in an attempt to change the subject.  _

_ “Too drunk to rhyme?” Charlie mocks her, chuckling. “Rhyming is so easy, it’s like . . . You can literally make anything rhyme if you really try.”  _

_ “Oh, my god! Charlie. We never . . . We never made it to that open mic night.”  _

_ “Holy shit! I completely forgot about that.” He takes one more sip of the bottle before passing it to Dee. “It’s still kinda early. You wanna go? We could kill it out there.”  _

_ “Hell yeah.” Dee drinks from the bottle one last time before setting it down.  _

_ “Dee, we are gonna kick some  _ serious _ ass. C’mon, let’s go!” _

_ She stands up while Charlie grabs a jacket, and checks her pockets. “Shit,” she mutters. “Charlie, I’m out of cash. You got any on you?” _

_ “No, I thought you had some.”  _

_ “I spent it on the alcohol!” _

_ “Shit. . . Well, maybe Frank has some lying around somewhere. Wouldn’t be the first time; Once, I found a wad of ones sticking out from under the couch cushion.” _

_ “Oh, I don’t even wanna know what he was gonna do with those,” says Dee, wrinkling her nose.  _

_ Charlie laughs. “Y’know, it’s actually kinda weird, but Frank hasn’t brought anyone home in a while.”  _

_ “Why not?” _

_ “I dunno, maybe out of respect for me because this is my place, too-” _

_ “Charlie, the man pays your full rent.”  _

_ “Okay. Well-” Charlie shrugs. “Then I guess he either goes to their places, or he’s going through a dry spell. Either way, he hasn’t had a girl over in a really long time.” _

_ “What about you?” Dee asks before she can stop herself.  _

_ “Me?” Charlie raises his eyebrows and does that thing where he half-grins when he’s surprised.  _

_ “No no, I was just asking. I’m not- You don’t have to tell me about your love life if you don’t want to,” Dee tries to amend.  _

_ “No, it’s cool, it’s cool. But I mean . . . It’s not really- Well, there’s the waitress, first of all. You guys all know about her.” He laughs nervously.  _

_ “Well, yeah,” acknowledges Dee, “but she doesn’t really count. You’ve never slept with her. . . you’ve barely even taken her out on a date. Has there been anyone else besides her?” _

_ “Besides her . . .” Charlie actually looks like he has to think about that. “Besides her . . .”  _

_ Dee picks up the bottle and takes a sip, waiting for Charlie to continue.  _

_ “Well, there was that one girl . . . There were those siblings, remember? You went for the guy and I went for the girl?”  _

_ Dee starts laughing, because really, that entire ordeal was pretty damn funny in retrospect.  _

_ “Yeah, I remember.” She takes another drink and passes the bottle to Charlie.  _

_ Once upon a time, Charlie did act like a normal heterosexual male with needs. Dee just got so used to Charlie  _ never  _ pursuing romantic relationships or even casual lays anymore that she forgot he once did.  _

_ “What about you?” Charlie asks. _

_ “Huh?” _

_ “How’s your love life?” Charlie takes a swig.  _

_ Dee shrugs. “The same.”  _

_ Charlie looks at her. “Is that a good ‘same’ or a bad ‘same’?”  _

_ “Neither,” Dee replies honestly.  _

_ “As when?” _

_ “I don’t know! It just . . . It’s just the same, Charlie.”  _

_ “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”  _

_ “No, dont-” Dee sighs. “Don’t apologize. I asked you, so you probably thought it was only fair to ask me.”  _

_ “What?” Charlie sounds genuinely confused. “That wasn’t- I didn’t mean it like that, I was honestly just curious.” _

_“Why?”_

_“Because, you know how neither of us are very conventional with the whole relationship thing?”_

_     “Yeah, we’re not.” _

_     “Yeah, well, it’s just nice to have someone who understands that it’s okay to stray from society’s expectations of a normal love life.” _

_ Dee wants to be insulted, but deep down she understands exactly what he means. _

_“It’s not a bad thing,” Charlie adds quickly, “definitely not a bad thing. We’re just . . . not doing what everyone else expects us to do.”_

_“Yeah, y’know, I’m sick of the guys always shitting on us about this. So what you don’t take every opportunity to go after girls, like Dennis? Or lie to everyone about who_ _you like, like Mac. It doesn’t make them better_ _than you; if anything, we’re better off than both of them because at least_ we’re _secure in our sexualities.”_

_“Oh, are you kidding me? So much better off.”_

_ Dee isn’t sure if Charlie is actually being genuine or just agreeing with her out of pity for her.  _

_“Yeah . . . And it’s funny how_ they _try to pin it on_ us, _when neither of them have found anyone, either,” Dee observes._

_ “Mhm. They’re projecting.” _

_ They fall into another comfortable silence where they can just lie there, and be calm, and be themselves. _

_“Dee . . . We gotta go to that open mic night,” Charlie says. “We could really get creative with it, y’know? People will love us!”_

_“Yeah!” exclaims Dee. “We should just go. Screw Mac and Dennis! We aren’t gonna flop, or- or choke_ , _or-”_

_“Yeah, we’re not even gonna need them there we’ll be having so much fun. Plus they won’t be able to do that thing where they always pressure us to the point of inevitably fucking up, and then laughing even more because_ _we fucked up. It’s just gonna be me and you, and a full supportive, probably drunk audience.”_

_ “We  _ do  _ do better without them,” Dee agrees. “Let’s get our shit and go.”  _

_ “Hell  _ yeah,  _ we’re going!” _

_ “Hey, I’m gonna check my purse for my wallet.” _

_ “Yeah, I’m all out,” Charlie supplies, like Dee didn’t already figure.  _

_ “When are you not out?” she quips before she can stop herself. She opens her purse and fumbles around, digging through pill bottles and crumpled up receipts for her wallet, but doesn’t find anything.  _

_ “God damnit,” she sighs. “My wallet’s back at my place.” _

_ “Oh no, we are  _ not  _ going back there.” Charlie’s eyes widen. “Do you even realize what we’d be walking into? You know Mac, he probably kicked that stripper out the second we closed the door, and now he’s-” _

_ “Okay, calm down, we don’t have to go back. God.” _

_ “Okay.” Charlie puts his hands up, like it was Dee who needed to control herself. “Thank you.” _

_ “Just means we can’t go.” Dee’s carefully nonchalant.  _

_ “Shit . . . Well-” His voice gets high pitched like it does when he’s thoughtful. “I mean, I’m really  _ not _ trying to get into whatever’s probably going down at your place right now, it’s just not-” Charlie sighs, giving up. He can’t even accurately convey his frustration with Mac.  _

_ Dee’s face scrunches up and she finds herself shaking her head. “Yeah, I know. I know.” _

_ “Y’know, honestly, Dee, you should just crash here tonight. Don’t go home to that. No halfway decent human being should have to deal with it.” _

_ “Yeah, I think I might take you up on that. I’m not- I don’t want to do the whole hasty, sloppy cleaning up of the evidence, and then listen to the flustered, total bullshit explanations-” _

_ “Yeah, it’s not- Don’t subject yourself to that. I’ll feel like a shitty friend if I let you go home to that.” _

_ Dee puts her head in her hands. “I gotta kick him out. This is it, this is the final straw. I’ve had enough. I’m kicking him out, and Dennis can follow him right out the goddamn door for all I care.” _

_ Charlie laughs drily, humorlessly. “He wouldn’t get the message if you threw all his stuff in the street and burned his key.”  _

_ “I’ll end up doing it eventually. Those sons of bitches won’t quit. They’re gonna keep pushing me, until I’m about to crack and they’ll just  _ drive  _ me out of my own apartment, and that’s probably their game plan now! They want to kick me out, so they can have the place to themselves and do whatever weird shit it is they do behind closed doors.” _

_ Charlie raises an eyebrow.  _

_ “Oh, they think they’re  _ so _ clever. They think they’re gonna get away with it, too, but they’ve got another thing coming. Sweet Dee’s onto them now!” _

_ “I don’t think that’s- They’re not- Dee, neither of them can afford rent right now what with all the damage repairs they owe to their old building.” _

_ “Or, that’s what they  _ want  _ me to think so I don’t notice them stealing my apartment right out from underneath me! It’s a nice try, I’ll applaud them for their effort, but I don’t think so. Charlie, I’m going back to my place to give those sons of bitches a piece of my mind.” _

_ “Whoa, whoa, Dee, hang on.” Charlie scoots closer to her and places a hand on her shoulder. “Just calm down, alright? Nobody’s out to  _ steal  _ your apartment.” _

_ Dee just looks at him.  _

_ “Here. Come on, have another drink.” He scoots back, reaches down over the bed, and hands her the bottle. Dee sighs and takes it from him, chugging down more alcohol.  _

_ “There. Just- Just try to relax.” _

_ She puts down the bottle, wincing at the bitter taste in her mouth, and offers it to Charlie.  _

_ “Nah, I’m good.” _

_ “Really?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ Dee doesn’t even blink. “No, you’re not.”  _

_ Charlie surrenders and takes the bottle from her, downing its contents. Dee just nods.  _

_ “There you go.” _

_ Charlie places the bottle back down on the ground. Dee fidgets with her jean pockets, switching between looking at Charlie and the ground.  _

_ “Do you feel better now?” she asks.  _

_ “Yeah, I totally needed that drink,” says Charlie with a chuckle.  _

_ “I know you did.”  _

_ There’s maybe half a moment of silence, of a shared glance where Dee’s stuck in time just like earlier, before Charlie’s eyes begin to wander to her lips and she finds herself scooting closer to him. As if in slow motion, he leans in and kisses her softly, to which she pulls away from slightly and stares at him in an alcohol-induced haze, unmoving.  _

_ “Shit,” she says stupidly, still staring at him. “We keep doing that.”  _

_ Another moment of silence.  _

_ “Doing what?” Charlie asks. His eyes look hazy, and for a split second Dee wonders if he’s blackout drunk or not. She feels a twinge in her chest at the fact that she cares at all.  _

_ Next thing she knows, she’s leaning back in and her and Charlie’s lips meet once again. The strong taste of tequila on his tongue overrides all her other senses, and she feels herself gag slightly against his mouth.  _

_ Charlie pulls away, but before he has the chance to speak Dee pulls him back in and takes a deep breath before resuming to kiss him. For some reason, to her, in this moment, the prospect of not kissing Charlie is worse to her than kissing a Charlie that reeks of tequila, so she grabs a fistful of his hair and intensifies the kiss. That warm feeling she had the first time is coming back; it surges through her body like electric energy, and she clings tightly onto Charlie because she’s afraid to let go. His teeth collide clumsily against hers, and Dee seizes this opportunity to take control of the kiss and slow down the pace at which they’re moving until she feels Charlie relax under her touch. His hands slowly begin to travel lower and lower until she leans back on the bed and pulls him on top of her, hands trailing his sides and breath heavy against his mouth. Charlie dips his head and begins leaving a wet trail of kisses from the side of her jaw all the way down to her neck, wrapping his arms tighter around her back to pull her closer to his skin. As his stubble tickles her chin and sends jolts of electricity coursing through her fingertips, Dee decides that she can deal with the consequences and their ruined friendship in the morning.  _

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, as soon as I got this fic idea I just had to write it down! I am obsessed with this show, and the dee/charlie dynamic really gets to me for some reason. Please feel free to drop a comment, I love feedback! it would mean a lot:) In the meantime, you can find me on [tumblr](http://lydiasilinski.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place the following night after the gang gets back together in "The Gang Misses The Boat." From here on out the story is canon-divergent

Charlie was already been on edge before he walks into the bar. Well, actually, it started earlier that morning right as Dee stormed out of his apartment. He should have realized that Dee would act shocked, even disgusted, at the memory of sleeping with him, and it’s his fault for not immediately realizing the reason she lashed out. She sank lower than she could have ever expected herself to sink- of course she would freak out and shout shrill things at him once the alcohol wore off and unclouded her judgement. Any emotions he might encounter afterward are his fault, not hers. 

He’s responsible for the tightness in his chest and the restlessness of his limbs, and never mind the fact that he hasn’t been able to get her out of his head since the second she slammed his door on her way out of his apartment. She’s just stuck in there, taking control over all his thoughts and running through last night’s memories like a goddamned broken record, and he hates her for it. 

He hates that he can’t stop thinking about her and the things he felt just talking to her, let alone being in bed with her,  _ holding  _ her . . . Jesus Christ. Charlie has accepted the complete abnormality of the way in which they interacted last night, but every time he tries to assess what it might mean, he reaches a dead end. They just don’t do that- it’s not  _ them. _ They never actively seek out each other’s company; in fact, he typically prefers to shut her out and mock her appearance or just anything about her, really, with the other guys, as opposed to spending one on one time with her. But last night, Charlie felt safer in her company than he’d felt in years. 

He swings open the door to Paddy’s pub, and the familiar racket of aggressive, raised voices immediately reaches his ears. He fists his hands in the pockets of his military jacket and takes a deep breath to calm himself down. It’s time to shove Dee into the back of his head with everything else and focus on work. 

“Oh, my god. That’s not-” Mac groans, running his hands through his hair. “The rule specifically says-”

“No, the  _ rule  _ says that any mess created by the owners has to be cleaned up  _ by that owner,”  _ Dennis argues exasperatedly. 

“No, but that’s Charlie work. All the messes are-”

“That only applies to customer messes now, Mac.  _ You _ have to clean this mess up because it wasn’t made by a customer, it was made by you.”

“I don’t have to clean anything up!” Mac yells, leaning over the bar counter. “I’m not doing any janitorial duty; that’s Charlie’s job.”

“Not when it’s- Oh, good, Charlie!” Dennis catches sight of Charlie and waves him over. “Can you remind Mac here of our new rule that states  _ explicitly  _ if one of us makes a mess or spills something, we have to be the ones to clean it up?”

Charlie scratches his head. “What are you talking about?”

That sets Mac off. “See?  _ See?” _ He points at Dennis each time he says it. “There’s no  _ rule. _ It’s just Charlie work.”

“What’s just Charlie work?”

Dennis looks at him and sighs. “Okay. Mac spilled a shit ton of red paint in the basement. Now, we put newspapers down beforehand in anticipation of a minor spill, but . . . things got a little out of hand, and it kinda got everywhere. It’s all over the floorboards, the walls-”

“I was filming a project badass tape!” Mac interrupts. 

“You still do those?” Charlie asks curiously. 

“Yeah! Well- Sort of. Dennis helps me film sometimes, so I can get better angles of my stunts. And different scene cuts, you know, to make it more badass. It’s all about the filming.”

“Oh, yep, I’m sure it is,” Charlie says to appease him. 

“Filming’s the whole name of the game! How do you think they do it in big-budgeted Hollywood movies? You know, with the special effects and camera angles?”

“Uh . . . They hire actual stunt doubles?” Charlie tries. 

“But that’s exactly what makes my tapes so badass- I’m my  _ own  _ stuntman. While Dennis works behind the scenes, I’m the man on screen making it all come together. He gives me the technology, and I utilize it with my badassery. His camera skills combined with my on-screen prowess make these new tapes a thousand times cooler than any of my old ones.” 

Charlie’s beyond caring at this point. 

“You use a man who films chicks he sleeps with in secret as your cameraman. That’s your situation,” he tells Mac seriously.  

“Well, it’s not like I go out and bring girls home with the sole intent of filming them,” Dennis defends. “The camera equipment is already set up in my room, so it just so happens to work out that-” He falters at the perturbed look on Charlie’s face. “Alright, whatever, it doesn’t even matter. That isn’t- We’re getting off topic.” He gestures to Mac.  _ “Mac _ thought it would be a good idea to bring an entire bucket of paint down into the basement with no lid.” 

“It was- It was necessary to the . . . I had a whole thing!” argues Mac. “Plus, I only meant to spill a little bit. But then, the bucket started tipping, and-”

“If I hadn’t gone down there and put a stop to the whole thing, who  _ knows _ what else he would’ve done?” 

Mac looks indignant. “It was- I had- I was just going to paint just a small amount of blood on my face, because there’s no way I was gonna buy that expensive Hollywood style shit for just  _ one _ video. And there was gonna be this thing, where blood was gonna spill from my arm-”

“Why would you use  _ paint _ for a blood substitute? It doesn’t even look like blood!” Charlie exclaims. 

Mac closes his eyes and purses his lips as he talks. “Because I couldn’t find any other closer alternatives at the paint store, and Dennis wanted to go follow some girl out of the store before I had a chance to look at the other stuff, which was totally creepy, by the way, dude.” He turns toward Dennis in annoyance. “You like, cornered her by the door and kept asking how old she was. Do you do that to all the chicks you meet? She looked ready to call the cops on you.” 

Dennis immediately begins to flounder. “N-N-N-No, she wasn’t ready to- She wasn’t going to- Mac, I was doing my thing and you kept ruining it by asking me if you could go back  _ inside _ the store. Like, why would I give a shit? You were killing my vibe, man, and I cracked under the pressure because she was  _ expecting _ me to act a certain way once I had her attention, and I wasn’t my usual charming, sexy self, so she-”

“She ran away in terror,” Mac reveals tersely. 

“Ohh,” says Charlie. “That makes sense.” 

Dennis rolls his eyes. “She was ugly anyway. I probably would’ve given her, like, two stars.” 

“So wait, why were you guys buying paint in the first place, if Mac’s the frontman of his own tapes?” asks Charlie. 

“In these kinds of videos and action scenes, you have to get  _ really _ gory because otherwise the audience isn’t gonna believe you’re really doing all these stunts,” says Mac. “You gotta make it look real.” 

“I thought you  _ were _ doing all those stunts.”

“That’s not- No- I’m-” Mac sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Dennis is doing his thing with the camera cuts and editing to make it more believable. I’m just the frontman putting a face to the badassery.”

“But where’s the part where you actually act badass?” Charlie asks. 

“The  _ point _ I’m trying to make,” interrupts Dennis, cutting through their voices before Mac could respond, “is that according to our new rule, Mac has to clean up the paint because he spilled it.”

“What? That ‘rule’ doesn’t even exist, bro!” Mac whines. 

“Yeah, dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie adds. 

“Are you making this shit up on the spot?” Mac asks. 

Dennis’s blue eyes widen in response and his lips part almost like he’s offended, but it’s a valid question.

“Huh? No, we had this conversation as a group about a couple weeks ago, remember?”

“No.”

“That’s . . . I got  _ no _ idea what you’re talking about.” 

“How do you not . . .” Dennis shakes his head. “It was one of our most heatedly debated conflicts of the entire  _ week. _ There were definitely death threats involved, from both sides, and it took a pretty long time to come to a consensus because Dee kept switching on us.” At this, Dennis chuckles. “Stupid bitch.” Mac bursts out laughing and Dennis joins him, the two of them almost doubled over in giggles over Dee’s apparent stupidity in a matter that never existed. Now normally, Charlie would, too, have been tickled by Dennis’s unoriginal and overused criticisms toward his sister, but today all he can do is stare at them in confusion. He’s not even compelled to do so much as smile.

“God, she’s so  _ stupid,” _ Mac says. “But, Den, I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that ever happened,” agrees Charlie. He ignores the flare in his chest he felt when Mac called Dee stupid. 

“Never happened . . . What the hell? We spent almost- How do you guys not remember?” Dennis’s voice is raised, a telltale sign of his aggravation. 

Mac and Charlie can only shake their heads, speechless. 

“Okay, well . . .” Dennis isn’t giving up. Great. “Let’s see what Frank and Dee have to say about it.” He gets up off his stool and walks toward the pool table where the two of them are leaning against it watching TV. 

“Guys!” he calls. They turn around, visibly irritated at having been disturbed during their TV program. 

“Whaddaya want?” asks Frank gruffly before chugging the remainder of his beer. 

“Just hang on a second. Charlie, Mac, c’mere,” orders Dennis. Charlie and Mac share a look before joining the rest of them by the pool table. 

“We were just settling who has to clean up the spilled paint down in the basement,” he starts, but that’s about all he gets out before Frank and Dee jump in. 

“Charlie does. It’s Charlie work,” says Frank. 

“Charlie,” Dee supplies, averting her gaze from him. Charlie probably should be paying more attention to the situation at hand, especially considering that there’s at least a 50% chance he’s about to get sent down to the basement to inhale toxic paint fumes and spend hours cleaning it up off the floor, but he’s fixating his gaze on Dee. She looks . . . Different, somehow. He really hopes it isn’t one of those seeing her in a new light after having sex things, because that would make him sound like the biggest douche in the world, but he literally cannot take his eyes off her. He’s stuck drinking in her beauty, noticing how the glow of her tan skin contrasts perfectly with the brightness of her blonde hair and how her thin, pink lips rest in the perfect pout beneath her firm cheekbones. 

“-Charlie? Bro? Earth to Charlie!” He blinks back into focus with Mac snapping his fingers in front of his face. 

“What? What?” He backs away, shaking his head and blinking his eyes rapidly. Charlie’s only okay with touch when he’s the initiator, and Mac was invading his personal space. He folds his arms defensively. 

“You’re cleaning up the paint,” Dennis tells him. 

“Huh? I thought you-”

“Oh, there’s no rule. Turns out, that was just a dream I had,” Dennis chortles. “It’s just hard to remember sometimes, what happens in dreams versus in reality. It all kinda jumbles together.” 

Charlie’s absolutely lost. “When did you-”

“I figured it out just a second ago. Try to keep up, buddy.” Dennis pats Charlie on the shoulder, which he also flinches from. 

“You better get to it. That shit’s gonna probably take you a while,” Mac suggests. 

“Alright, fine,” Charlie says passively, backing away from them. “You guys were gonna make me do it anyway. I don’t know why we even had to have a whole conversation about it.”

“Hey, hey. Less talking, more cleaning,” Dennis orders. “It’s a real mess down there.”

“Yeah, Charlie, listen. I hate to pile on, but as soon as you’re done, there’s a coupla’ fucked up toilets in the men’s room that need repairing,” Frank drawls in his thick accent. 

Just perfect. 

“Yeah. Great!” It comes out shriller than he meant it to. “Anything else, before I go downstairs?” 

They shake their heads, checking with one another to confirm. “No, I think that’s it for now,” Mac replies. It’s amazing, really, how all 4 of them completely missed his sarcasm. They always do. 

“Really? Are you  _ sure?  _ Cause I wouldn’t want to leave anything out,” he says scornfully. It bounces right off the gang. No one so much as blinks twice at him in spite of his obvious disgruntlement at having been forced into Charlie Work. He’s hated Charlie Work for years, as a matter of fact. He can’t even remember the last time he unclogged a toilet without his eyes burning or his gag reflex threatening to close his entire throat, but he just sucks it up and does it because otherwise he’s out of a job and what would he do? What skills does he bring to the table? What value would he offer to a real company? None. 

“Yeah. That’ll be it for a while,” responds Mac. He’s so completely clueless. “But seriously, go on ahead and get started because there’s a  _ lot  _ to do today. And we do have more for you after you’re done.” 

Charlie purses his lips to keep from yelling at him. He gives one final nod before heading off to the basement. He tries to shut off his brain and go into auto-pilot mode because work like this is only possible if he _ isn’t _ thinking, but his mind still refuses to stop picturing Dee’s face when she ordered him not to tell anyone else about them sleeping together. She seemed so  _ angry. . .  _ Sometimes he worries that Dee thinks he genuinely hates her, especially after she fell into that stupor of self hatred and destruction that scared Charlie more than he would ever care to admit, but now it seems like Dee hates  _ him _ . Why else would she have been so revolted, so  _ nauseated _ at him this morning? 

He opens the door to the basement and flips on the light switch. Nothing. Great, the electricity’s out again. Yet another thing he’ll have to fix, because god knows Frank isn’t gonna fork the money to hire an actual electrician to come take care of it. He takes a couple steps down, and his shoe comes into contact with a glob of wet paint, causing him to slip and fall. The last things he remembers before blacking out are his curses and shouts of pain accompanying his topple down the stairs, and then an exploding pain in the back of his head as he hit the ground. 

 

\---------------

 

“Charlie? Charlie, can you hear me?”

“Deandra, check and make sure he’s breathing.”

Charlie blinks his eyes open and immediately squints and shies away from the flashlight being shone directly at him. “Get that thing away from me,” he mumbles, throwing an arm in front of his face and closing his eyes again. 

He hears a sigh of relief. 

“Frank, he’s okay. Just give him a second.” 

Is that Dee’s voice? Charlie opens his eyes again, and sure enough Dee’s peering over him looking far too concerned for his liking. She’s turned the flashlight off, though, so at least she respected his wishes. He tries to sit up and groans at the dull ache in his head as he pushes himself up with his elbows. 

“What happened?” he asks. 

“We were hoping you’d tell us!” an affronted Frank replies. “What the hell were you doing down here?” 

“What the hell was  _ I _ doing, I was cleaning up the paint! I think I slipped on some on the stairs or something.” 

“Yeah, we heard some clambering and then a crash, so we came down to check . . . That everything was okay,” Dee says quietly. 

Charlie again can’t take his eyes off her. She’s back to flitting her gaze up and down, unable to make proper eye contact with him, but that look she had on her face when Charlie first blinked back into consciousness . . . He’ll file that away for later. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he responds, if a little tersely. If Dee can play this game, then so can he. He stands up and ignores the worry evident in Dee’s frown when he wobbles slightly on the spot. “I have a lot of shit to do, so if you guys don’t mind, could you leave me to it, maybe?”

Dee looks like she’s going to interject, but Frank just says, “Alright. Let us know when you’re done,” and starts heading back upstairs. 

“You sure you’re okay?” The question’s out before Charlie can process that Dee’s even speaking to him at all, and she’s already looking back down at the ground after having glanced into his eyes for a split second. 

“I don’t know, can you maybe  _ look _ at me when you’re talking to me?” Charlie barks, condescendence clear in his tone, before he can stop himself. 

Guilt bubbles in his stomach when Dee flinches and immediately looks back up at him, blue eyes wide with something Charlie can’t define. He finds himself stuck staring at her again- why can’t he look  _ away _ from her?- and taking a step closer to her, but before either of them can speak, Frank’s calling from the top of the staircase, 

“You coming, Deandra?” 

Just like that, the spell is broken. Dee moves away from him like she’s been electrocuted and practically scampers up the stairs, like prey running from its predator. 

His Charlie Work is finished for a while before he manages to get that scene out of his head. 

 

\----------------

 

“Dennis, why do you have  _ way _ more tips than me or Dee?”

It’s late, they’re about to close up, and they’re all hovering within that delicate line between tipsy and drunk. Usually on work nights, they wait until they’re off duty to get completely hammered, so right now they're only about 3 shots in apiece. 

“Because, Mac, I know how to harness my charisma in an effective, efficient manner that not only guarantees tips as the  _ least _ the ladies are compelled to give me, but that also ensures I make a safe, smooth transition to the next table. Plain and simple, I cover more ground than you, and I do it better.” 

“There’s no  _ way _ you got more tips than me,” Dee interjects irritably. “I hit more tables than either of you combined.” 

“Well, the obvious explanation for  _ that _ is that you’re ugly,” Mac tells her casually. 

Charlie turns and looks at him. 

“What?” Dee’s shrill. “I’m the mature, sophisticated, young female bartender. What’s not to like about that?” 

“Young?” Dennis raises his eyebrows patronizingly. “Sis, you’re as over the hill as they get.”

“We’re the same age,” she snarls. 

“Maybe mathematically,” Dennis acknowledges. “But, Dee, I think everyone here can agree that I wear 39  _ much _ better than you could ever hope to.” 

Now Charlie’s looking at Dennis. He tries to reduce the white-hot rage surging through his head every time he makes an unnecessary jab at Dee, but it’s proving to be more difficult than he anticipated. Charlie can’t suppress the nervous bouncing of his knee on the barstool or tapping of his fingers on the counter. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Mac jumps in. “Dee, you need to stop relying on your looks for tips because it just isn’t working for you.” 

“Yeah, on that note, you shouldn’t rely on your so-called ‘humor’ to finance your expenses, either,” adds Dennis. “It’s starting to get really embarrassing for the rest of us. Your attempts at jokes are so pitiful, in fact, that sometimes I get actual  _ physical _ pain from watching you perform.” 

“Yeah, Dee, you can’t seem to accept the fact that your jokes are just terrible. They’re  _ awful.” _

“The worst,” Dennis agrees. 

“Plus, no one wants an ugly bird hovering over them squawking god knows what all the time.” Mac’s chuckling now. “We’re telling you this for your own good, because you’re making us all look bad. So, just give people their drinks and stop trying to flirt with the customers.”

Dee folds her arms. “I don’t flirt with the customers, Mac. I can’t even remember the last time we had a man in here younger than 45.” 

“She’s right- Our targeted demographic is really starting to slip away from us,” Dennis agrees, “which is bringing me to think we need a new piece of ass in the bar. A younger, hotter bartender.” 

“Yeah, we could really reel in the big bucks with that,” says Frank excitedly. 

“Very true,” agrees Dennis, “but the problem is gonna be recruiting the right people who’d want to work here. We’ve kinda gotten a bad rep over the years.” 

“Yeah, Dee, you really need to stop scaring the customers away,” Mac interjects. 

Charlie chances a glance over at Dee, who looks about ready to rip Mac’s head off. 

_ “I  _ scare the customers away? That’s funny coming from the guy who’s responsible for at least half our lost tip ops with his so-called ‘ocular pat-downs’!”

“I am  _ assessing _ threat levels and clearing people for entry!” Mac exclaims, standing up. “It’s a  _ way _ better system than your so-called comedic bits and characters.”

“Hey, hey. Calm down,” Dennis admonishes, placing a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “We need to be focusing on what’s _ really _ important here: you both have a lot to learn from me if you want to be earning my kind of tips.” 

“Hah! What a load of bullshit,” exclaims Frank. “Dennis, I saw you taking some money out of your sister’s earnings while she was in the bathroom earlier. Deandra, if you stop trying to pretend to be young and funny, you might get tipped better. And Mac, your ‘ocular pat downs’ don’t do shit for our bar. You need to spend less time ‘clearing’ and more time carding.”

Dee’s eyes widen and she leans over the bar, pointing a finger at Dennis. “I  _ knew _ it! You son of a bitch, you give me my money back  _ right _ now!” 

“What the hell are you talking about, Frank? I card every single person that walks in through that door!” Mac indignantly exclaims. “I could prevent robberies in here with one hand tied behind my back! None of you appreciate a goddamn thing I do for this bar, and I’m sick of it.” He pours himself another shot. 

“You don’t ‘prevent’ them if they wouldn’t have happened in the  _ first _ place,” Dennis insists frustratedly. “You don’t just  _ stare _ at someone and thereby render them conveniently incapable of robbing a bar!”

“God damnit, Dennis, first my apartment. Now this shit?” Dee cries. “Give me my money back!” She reaches for his collection of tips. 

“Oh, no. I don’t have to give you  _ shit.” _ Dennis slides his pile out of her grasp. “You don’t own any shares of the bar. You want out of a job? No? Then shut up.” 

“You can’t just  _ blackmail _ me into giving you money!”

“Enough, enough,” Frank orders. 

“Dennis, give Deandra her money back. I own more of the bar than you, so really,  _ I’m _ your superior. And I don’t wanna catch you stealing anyone’s tips again, kapeesh?”

“Alright, Jesus, Frank. It was just a joke,” Dennis mutters as he reaches into his pile and hands Dee some money back. Charlie feels sick. Dennis doesn’t joke, especially not when it comes to others’ appearances. All those things he said about Dee he means, and worse, he says them  _ all the time _ . Charlie has been roped into it every day for years. 

“God, you’re such an asshole,” Dee growls, snatching the money from him and shoving it in her purse. She walks out of the bar without another word. 

Charlie turns back toward them once the initial shock of Dee storming out wears off. Unfamiliar contempt for Dennis and Mac’s harsh words follows in its wake. 

“C’mon, can’t you guys, like, lay off her?” It’s out before he can stop it. 

“Huh?” Mac raises an eyebrow at him. 

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” asks Dennis. 

“Nothing!” Charlie grows defensive. “Just . . . I think she’s had a rough couple of days, and we don’t need to be making it any worse for ourselves, because she’ll only take it out on us.” 

Dennis and Mac stare at him in silence for a painful couple of seconds. 

“Okay, Jesus. Chill out, dude,” Dennis says, raising an eyebrow in confusion. 

“Are you being serious right now or are you joking?” Mac asks him. 

Charlie doesn’t know what to do with this newfound anger towards his friends. He doesn’t  _ like _ it; he doesn’t even know where it came from. But it’s undeniably there, and he’s quickly finding out that the more they speak ill of Dee, the angrier he gets. 

“I’m not joking,” he answers, patience rapidly waning. “You just say the same shit every day, and it’s not that funny anymore.” 

“What are you talking about? That’s what  _ makes _ it funny- It’s timeless,” explains Mac. 

“It’s not the content of the joke you need to focus on; it’s the  _ delivery,” _ says Dennis. “You could think of something extremely funny to say, and then totally screw it up because of the way in which you deliver the punchline.”

“Yeah, don’t be like Dee- Don’t overhype the punchline.”

“God, I  _ hate _ it when she does that.” Dennis rolls his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. Charlie never noticed her doing that when the two of them were alone. In fact, he remembers her making several remarks at Dennis’s expense, none of which failed to elicit genuine laughter from him. She seemed much more comfortable and relaxed. 

“Yeah, she might as well walk to an ATM and drain our bank accounts herself, what with all the customers she turns off,” Mac says. “Hey, Charlie, could you pour me another shot?” 

“Yeah, me too?” asks Dennis. 

Charlie wordlessly pours the shots and passes out the glasses. He downs its contents in hopes that Mac and Dennis’s complaints about Dee would become slightly more tolerable with the company of alcohol.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know our 2 favorite dorks didn't get to interact as much this chapter, but I promise they'll be talking more soon! :) SOMEONE has to bring up The Thing, and this time instead of just snapping each other until the gang "goes back to normal," they'll actually eventually confront their feelings and accept them and work on them together and omg im getting carried away i just love chardee so much im about to cry. come talk to me on [tumblr](http://lydiasilinski.tumblr.com) in the mean time. I don't bite! Also, please feel free to drop a comment/review- not to be like cheesy but feedback highkey means the absolute world to me


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, chapter 3! I want to thank everyone for all your kind reviews- they really mean the world to me, and you guys motivate me to keep on writing on the days that are hard. Enjoy the chapter :) Any and all warnings are listed in the tags.

In retrospect, Dee probably should’ve grabbed a bite to eat at some point in the day before heading into work. She probably should’ve eaten yesterday, too, but she and retrospect have never really been the best of friends. 

The guys have her extra busy tonight, flinging her from table to table like a boomerang, and how in the hell did they manage to reel in this insurmountably large amount of people? Is this a part of their hiring a younger, hotter bartender scheme? Dee doesn’t even have it in her to concentrate on caring about that aspect of her evening that’s how drained she is. She can barely channel enough energy into moving herself from one table to the next as it is, let alone stopping and contemplating the nuances of Dennis and Mac’s most recent schemes. 

At the next table she serves, she has to take a second and lean against it to dispel the dizziness that’s latched itself onto her head and turned her stomach upside down. 

“Ma’am, are you alright?” 

The curious tone of the customer cuts into her thoughts and awakens her. 

“Yeah!” she responds, standing up straight and plastering a smile on her face for good measure. “Sorry about that. What would you guys like to drink?” 

And just like that she falls with ease back into the mindless cycle of work, flitting from tables to bar stools to booths, writing down drinks and delivering them with trained finesse and a customary grin she reserves only for the most high maintenance of customers in order to fend off any possible skepticism or complaints. She’s doing fine, she’s doing  _ great _ , as a matter of fact, until Dennis approaches her and forcefully pokes her shoulder while she’s pouring drinks for a table and almost causes her to drop the bottle. 

“Dee, we got a problem. There’s a table complaining saying you got all their drinks wrong. Now, normally I wouldn’t mention this to you because honestly, this is what we’ve come to expect from you at this point, but as you can see, we’re  _ awfully _ busy tonight.” He starts laughing knowingly, eyes crinkling with not amusement, but almost . . .  _ lust _ , and Dee thinks she was right about her earlier hunch regarding his scheme to hire a younger bartender. 

“And we need to keep the ball moving,” he finishes. 

She sighs. “I’ll get to it in a second. I got a shit ton of tables I’m about to take orders from.”

“God damnit, we can’t get behind! Go take care of that table right now. They need their drinks. Here, I have the correct order-”

“If I go take care of that table right now, we  _ will _ get behind. I’m doing my thing, and you’re just- You know what? Why can’t you just do it?” Dee asks irritably. The adrenaline from zipping around the bar is fading into weary exasperation, and she needs to get moving again and immerse herself in the rush of waiting, or else she will crash. 

_ “Because,” _ Dennis growls agitatedly, brows furrowing and eyes wandering toward the group of girls a little ways down crowded around the other side of the bar. Dee follows them, and then everything clicks. 

_ “Ah, _ I see,” she smugly draws out, feeling a rush of power when Dennis squirms under her glare. “So I take it the hunt for a newer, younger bartender is going well, then?”

“Uh, very well, actually! Not that it’s any of your concern,” Dennis stammers. 

“You’re easily one of the most pathetic people I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, whatever. Like you have a single thing on  _ any _ of these women. You would’ve been out of here  _ years _ ago if it weren’t for Frank, you know that, right? But right now, you just need to give that table the drinks they ordered and then get back to work because people are starting to complain.” 

“Does it make you feel good, comparing me to girls twenty years younger than you?” Dee asks him spitefully, masking the hurt she feels at his words. 

“What? No, I’m not saying that to make myself feel good- I’m saying it for  _ your _ own benefit, Dee. Now, I’m serious. Go get that table their  _ goddamn _ drinks before I lose my shit over you.”

What concerns Dee is that Dennis actually thinks his constant condemnations are helping her. 

“Whatever,” she mutters, grabbing the slip of paper with their orders. As soon as he turns his back and heads back towards the young girls, she closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath to steady herself. She really doesn't feel good now. 

She downs a couple of shots to take the edge off, not even wincing at the bitter taste coating the back of her throat. She can’t remember the last time she did. She fumbles with the liquor bottles as she pours the drinks, and when she picks up the platter, it feels much heavier than it should. By the time she reaches the table, she’s out of breath. 

“Here are your new drinks. Completely on us, so sorry about that,” she apologizes to the customers routinely. She’s already turned around and making her way back toward the bar before the confused customers have a chance to tell her that those aren’t the drinks they ordered. 

She leans forward with her elbows on the bar to support herself, winded from running back and forth all night. Her adrenaline from earlier has yet to return, and while she knows that all she has to do to get back into the swing of things is hit up a few new tables and plaster a fresh smile, a bigger part of her wants desperately to remain leaned against the bar enjoying a brief moment of rest from walking around carrying drinks all night. The pressure in her head and the ache in her stomach if anything have worsened, and Dee wants to bang her head against a wall when she remembers that it’s only 11 PM. 

“Dee?” She feels a hand on her back, much gentler than Dennis’s earlier poking and prodding, but startles when she connects the voice to the gesture-  _ Charlie _ . 

Dee opens her eyes and turns to look at Charlie, not at all expecting the glaring concern evident in his expression. His brows are furrowed, though not unkindly, and his green eyes seem to be drilling straight into her. She feels small just being scrutinized by him, and she jumps to fill the silence before he can start asking questions. 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” She leans back against the bar for support. “First Dennis, now you. What the hell do you want?” It comes across as less threatening and more just whiny. Great. 

She should probably worry when Charlie doesn’t give any indication that he hears Dee speak. In fact, he actually steps closer to her like she still hasn’t spoken at all. She really should start coming off as more intimidating to these guys, but she just doesn’t have it in herself to try right now. 

“Have you eaten anything today? You don’t look so good,” Charlie says, and it takes everything in her not to shy away from him. He  _ knows _ her, whether she’d like to admit it or not, and so he knows that sometimes, just sometimes, she doesn’t eat. It’s not a big deal or anything, but it is something that Charlie knows about her. 

One thing that Dee’s come to learn about Charlie is that he bounces back from things very quickly, almost unhealthily so. He never holds grudges, and Dee isn’t sure if it’s the result from long-term alcohol and inhalant abuse addling his brain, or just basic compassion. Now, normally she wouldn’t bat her eyes twice at Charlie showing compassion; they all have things they care about, and they have all before and will again set aside their personal disagreements in order to maintain regularity in their jobs and schemes. But what bothers Dee is that this time, he’s directing it  _ specifically at her.  _ He’s treating her again with that foreign delicacy he used when they were alone together. 

“I’m fine.” She stands up straighter to emphasize her point and folds her arms across her stomach. 

Charlie’s frown deepens. “You’re sweating.” 

She wipes her forehead and forces a chuckle. “Am I? Did Frank turn up the heat again?”

“Do you need to sit down for a second?” he asks her. 

“Oh, no! Don’t worry, I don’t need to sit down,” she assures him, adding a fake laugh in hopes of brightening him up a little. 

It doesn’t work. 

He just keeps on standing there staring at her, and Dee has no reason to even suspect him as worried, does she, so is he . . . Annoyed? Probably. She  _ has  _ been slacking off on her job tonight, when she should be used to operating on an empty stomach. Charlie just wants her to get back to work so that they don’t fall behind. 

“Dee, you can take a break for a  _ minute.  _ I think we can handle it. We can’t have you passing out on us or anything.” 

_ Deflect, deflect.  _

“God damnit, Charlie, I said I’m  _ fine.  _ Okay? Just, get back to work.” 

He doesn’t budge. 

"Mac wanted me to tell you to get going on the men’s room toilets,” she 

blurts, having come up with it on the spot. She swallows down the pang of regret she feels ordering Charlie to do Charlie Work while knowing how much he hates it, but she needs to get rid of him somehow. He’s still staring at her like he’s worried, and Dee can’t have that. It isn’t normal. She turns from him and walks back behind the bar, and Charlie doesn’t stop her. 

“Now, can you and Dennis please stop your coddling?” she asks in that same passive aggressive tone he pulled on her the other day. 

She hates herself for feeling guilty when his eyes harden and that guarded, careful expression returns to his usual, unnoticing face, but this is the Charlie that she can handle. 

He utters a withdrawn “whatever” and walks away. A small part of Dee wants him to come back, but she knows deep down she did the right thing, even if it was a little harsh. She didn’t mean to hurt his feelings or anything- Yelling and pushing people away is her natural instinct. She just has an edge that sometimes interferes with her social interactions, nothing more. 

Besides, it isn’t fair for him to suddenly start treating her nicely just because they . . . were intimate together. Just because he kissed her with more ferocity than she ever thought possible from someone with as little romantic involvement with women as himself doesn’t mean that they have to be  _ nice _ to each other. That’s not how it works, not how  _ they _ work. She needs Charlie to be mean to her again, before everything changed, so that things can go back to normal. She feels put under a microscope whenever he looks at her now, and this new, softer tone he’s taken on with her makes her want to crawl out of her own skin _. _ Since when has Charlie ever given a damn about anything besides himself? Where is it all coming from?

A small part of her is terrified that she  _ likes  _ this new way that Charlie treats her, seeks it out, even. She’s terrified she liked the way she felt that night in his embrace, or how achingly easy it was to talk to him about anything she wanted. He didn’t judge her, nor did he even laugh once at her expense. In fact, the entire time they were together, she felt . . . better, somehow.  And she definitely felt something, something she can’t quite place a finger on but hasn’t shaken off, something that’s seated itself deep in her chest and hasn’t moved. She felt lighter . . . almost safer, even. That’s it. Charlie made her feel  _ safe _ . 

The sick feeling in her stomach slowly returns. Surely, Charlie’s annoying mother-henning right there didn’t just make her feel safer? That’d be crazy. And weird, and wrong. Dee feels nauseous as a result of 2 days’ starvation, not the absence of check-ups from Charlie.  

“What’s going on over here? Dee, a table of  _ very _ pissed off customers just complained to me that they’re  _ still _ waiting on their drinks,” she hears coming from the left of her. She turns to a visibly distressed Dennis, who runs a hand through his carefully rugged curls and gives her an exasperated look. “I thought I told you to take care of them,” he says. 

“I did- I literally just gave them their drinks.” 

“Huh? No, you didn’t- That’s why I was  _ just _ there, looking at their empty, drink-free table-”

“That doesn’t make any sense. I dropped them off a second ago.”

Dennis closes his eyes. “No, you didn’t, Dee, because I wouldn’t be standing here  _ talking _ to you about it if you’d actually gotten off your lazy ass for once and done your goddamn job!”

Dee doesn’t have the energy to challenge him right now, even though she  _ remembers _ dropping the drinks off. If she doesn’t appease Dennis somehow now,  then it will come back to bite her in the ass later. 

“Fine!” she exclaims. She doesn’t even remember where the table is. “I’ll do it, alright? Just give me a minute.” She needs to sit down. 

“No, I think I got this one,” Dennis responds, tone clipped and lips curled as he walks around to join her behind the bar. “You clearly have no idea what you’re doing.” 

“I  _ gave _ them their drinks,” she says incredulously, more to herself than anyone else. Dennis is past the point of being argued with. 

“Fucking useless,” Dennis mutters as he squats to grab some bottles of alcohol. 

Dee folds her arms across her chest and digs her nails into the sides of her arms to fend off the sting of his words. 

“Tell you what, why don’t you do something  _ useful _ for me-” Dennis stands up and places a hand on Dee’s shoulder. “Go find Charlie, and tell him that he needs to clean up some of the booths in the back. They’re looking pretty bad, and you know we got a late night tonight, so just, go find him, and tell him to get started on those.” 

Dee’s gaze automatically shifts towards the men’s restroom. Dennis’s follows hers curiously, and once his lands on the men’s restroom he raises an eyebrow at her as an invitation to explain. 

“Is Charlie in the men’s room?” he asks.  

“I sent him there,” Dee responds quickly before Dennis can bite her head off with his judgements and assumptions.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Why?” 

“Because he wouldn’t go away; I made up that he needed to go clean the toilets even though he just did yesterday night to get him to leave me alone,” she responds, leaning back on the bar to keep herself upright. 

Even though it’s technically the truth, it still scares her how fast she was able to pour it out casually. Dennis’s suspicion is completely wiped away. All it takes, apparently, is a small jab at Charlie’s gullibility.

“You can  _ always _ use Charlie Work to get him off your back if he’s annoying you,” she adds for good measure. 

“Good one,” he tells her honestly. Dee can always tell when he’s being serious, and whether that’s a twin thing or just a knowing Dennis your entire life thing she frankly gave up trying to figure out decades ago. 

“You do still need to tell him to clean those booths, though,” he adds, garnishing his command by glaring at her with those signature, cold, blue eyes. 

Dee’s insides twist. “Why can’t you just do it?” 

“Haven’t I done enough for you tonight?” Dennis exclaims loudly, throwing his hands up in the air. “Are you really not capable of accomplishing a single thing around here yourself? I had to clean up your mess twice in the last five goddamn  _ minutes. _ Now, be helpful for once and go into that disgusting, poorly kempt bathroom to bring Charlie out.” 

“What am I, your messenger?” Dee exclaims. “I got my own thing going on, and I couldn’t give less of a shit whether those booths are clean or not. You go tell him yourself.” 

“You wanna make this month’s rent?” Dennis is calm now, too calm. “Then you better  _ want _ those tables clean if we want those tips. Go get Charlie.” 

Dee doesn’t remind him that the only reason they’re late on rent is because Mac has yet to pitch in, instead just sighs and moves past him to head towards the men’s room. One of these days, she’ll stand up to Dennis. She’ll go off on him for what a complete dick he’s been to her over the years, and Mac, too, while she’s at it. She could even give them an ultimatum: throw them out of her apartment if they don’t promise to shape up their attitudes. One of these days she will. But today is not that day. 

When Dee opens the men’s room, the stench of cleaning supplies invades her nostrils and has her gripping the door handle in order to fend off a wave of dizziness. 

“Dee? What are you doing in here?” 

She glances at Charlie, who’s already looking at her with that same expression he had on earlier: that pensive look in his eyes and the slight wrinkling of his forehead. She takes note of his slicked back hair with the precise touch of messiness and how it complements both his loose tee shirt and tight jeans. She’s not  _ checking him out,  _ or anything _ \-  _ Just noticing that he looks nice. Friends do it all the time. Besides, he  _ should _ look presentable for work. 

“Uh . . .” Dee stutters on her words. “Dennis said- There’s- You need to clean the booths outside. He wanted me to tell you.” 

“Right now? I’m still working on the toilets.” 

Dee folds her arms again. “I know. Just . . . He’s gonna get really mad if you don’t start them now, and I know none of us need that tonight, so could you just come do it?” 

Charlie tosses down the mop, if a little forcefully, but Dee counts it as a victory. For once, she thinks with relief, Charlie won’t be difficult. 

He palms the sides of his jeans and looks up at the ceiling for a moment before returning his gaze to Dee. 

“When was the last time you ate something?”

There it is. 

“What?” 

Charlie can’t just  _ ask _ her when was the last time she ate. People can’t just  _ ask _ someone when they last ate. It’s rude, and it’s an invasion of privacy. 

“Dee, you look like you’re about to fall over.” 

“I’m just tired,” she responds defensively. 

Charlie doesn’t look like he believes her. “Okay.” 

Dee feels what little patience she had initially start to crack. “I  _ am!  _ I’m exhausted, actually,” she adds, juicing it up for extra protection. “You guys got me running more errands than a suburban white mom, I feel like I’m the community bar mule.”

She moves to the side of the door to let Charlie through and advises him to start his work, reminding him to tread carefully around Dennis lest he want to find himself in the path of destruction when Dennis finally loses his shit for the night. 

But Charlie doesn’t go. “Why are you not eating again?” he pries instead. 

Dee has to physically restrain herself from lashing out and slapping him. He has  _ no right _ asking her questions like these. None. He can’t just come bursting into her personal life, asking her invasive questions and expecting her to give him honest answers, or  _ any _ answers, for that matter. She shouldn’t have to waste energy constructing lies for him. 

She doesn’t tell him that there isn’t an “again,” that’s it’s always just been. She doesn’t tell him that sometimes the mere sight of food sends her off running to the bathroom to vomit, and she doesn’t tell him that no matter how long she’ll go without eating, she’ll never be okay with what she sees in the mirror. 

“I’ve just been busy,” she tries instead in that same dismissive tone. 

Charlie’s look softens, and Dee is thrown completely off kilter. Why is he acting like this with her? What’s his angle? 

“Too busy to eat?” Dee can hear his repressed emotion tangled on his tongue, fighting to stay in. She’s always been very good at reading people. She has to be in order to keep them out. 

“I-I have to get back to work.” She makes a complete fool of herself turning around and fumbling with the door handle, somehow managing to stumble in the process, and almost falls down on the floor, but somehow Charlie is able to run up behind her and catch her. His hands grab her waist and quickly pull her to safety. 

“Whoa!” he exclaims, tightening his hold on her. She instinctively rests her back against his chest, breathing a short sigh of relief. That probably would have been a very ugly spill. But, once the initial shock from almost falling wears off, she briskly swallows down her relief and attempts to worm her way out of his grip, cheeks pinking in embarrassment. Charlie spins her around instead, though, and  _ huh, _ she thinks, intrigued, he’s a lot stronger than she gave him credit for. She’s aware that her eyes are wide as saucers and her mouth is gaping like a fish, but Charlie’s  _ still _ holding her, and they’re in  _ very _ close proximity right now. She’s aware of how  _ not _ shitty he smells, and since when does Charlie not smell shitty? If anything, he smells . . .  _ Refreshing?  _ It’s easier for Dee to think that all these bad things about Charlie have just been drilled into her head by the guys repeatedly for years than to suspect that he cleaned up to impress her. 

If she leans a little closer, she can touch her nose with his, and they could- Wait, what the  _ hell? _

“That was close,” she hears him say. 

She jolts in his grip and backs away from him. Charlie lets her go, staring at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. He’s been doing that too much lately, and it makes Dee want to jump out of her own skin, even more so than usual. 

“Yeah, it was,” she responds faintly. She shakes her head and runs a hand through her now messy hair. “I’m just . . . I gotta get back to work-” 

“Wait, Dee-” Charlie starts as she reaches for the door, and suddenly it occurs to her that she forgot about getting Charlie to come clean the booths. She turns around, but before she can get it out, he speaks. 

“You really should eat something. We don’t want you passing out on us tonight, okay?” 

He sounds gentler somehow, and Dee bites the inside of her lip as a distraction. She doesn’t want to think about how nice he’s been to her. 

“Yeah. Okay. I will,” she lies. “Just, can you go do the booths? Dennis is getting on my ass about tips.” She adds in a shrug to help lighten the mood and distract him. 

“Tell Dennis I’ll do them in a minute,” Charlie replies, and just like that, they’ve claimed that careful amiability they always practice at work in order to avoid conflict. 

Dee nods and turns around to open the door. She closes it behind her, refusing to look back at Charlie. She still feels his gaze burning into her back even as she walks away from the restroom and returns to work.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's so short! I decided that this was a good natural break, because the rest of the chapter was getting really long. Chapter 4 will be a big one, I promise. Also, I wanted to remind of a few things considering some of the recent events in season 12: The beginning of this fic takes place right after “The gang misses the boat,” which is in s10 for those who forgot, meaning that Mac is still closeted, and Dennis hasn’t started taking his meds on the regular yet. I’m not sure what rgc is intending to do w mac and dennis in s12, but I think everyone can agree they’re both straying from the monotony of their old ways. I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with them in this fic, though, whether I want them to grow or stay the same. I don’t want their stagnancy to serve as the sole plot mover for charlie/dee, because in doing so I’d create an unhealthy, unstable foundation for their relationship, and the whole point of this fic is that charlie and dee are good for each other. It might not seem like it at first because they’re both deeply damaged and flawed individuals, but struggling to break free of the roles they’ve been forced into with the codependent dynamic of the gang is a big part of their relationship development.  
> Anyways, that being said, if I do decide to keep Mac and Dennis consistent throughout the course of this fic, it will be for reasons other than the progression of charlie and dee’s relationship. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for how I should tackle their characters, then I’d be more than happy to hear them!  
> In the mean time, please feel free to come talk to me on [tumblr!](http://lydiasilinski.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 4, and it's long, as promised! This one's in dee's POV again, but we'll be switching back to Charlie after this

It’s not like Dee hates her body. Sure, she could stand to lose a few, but so what? That’s not why she skips meals from time to time; she knows she comes across as at least somewhat presentable the majority of the time, even if the guys do manage to criticize every aspect of her physical appearance at least once a day. Sometimes, it just doesn’t occur to her to eat. What’s the point? She’s stuck in a dead end job with minimal pay covering only a fraction of her expenses, and she lives in a shitty one bedroom apartment with her twin brother, and Mac. Sometimes she doesn’t eat simply because she doesn’t have the mental stamina to face her responsibilities.   
She got Charlie, of all people, to sleep with her, and while it might be more indicative of his issues than hers, the fact still stands that she was literally the last resort for the last resort of last resorts. Maybe if Charlie cleans himself up a little or refines his social skills, he’ll find someone, or even settle down if he wants. But he won’t. He lives in an even shittier, even smaller apartment with his could-be father and has been sleeping in the same bed as him for over 10 years. At least Dee can say she has her own. She realizes, with a tight twinge in her chest, how pathetic it is to compare Charlie’s life of squalor to her own, and how compensating for the mere fact that she, a grown woman, sleeps in her own bed makes her even more pitiful. She shouldn’t even be thinking about Charlie let alone comparing multiple aspects of his lifestyle to her own, but here she is, listing off the reasons his life is slightly less on track than hers.   
Dee reaches into her pocket to feel for her lighter and half a pack of cigarettes that she traded Frank for last week and quietly slips out the back of the bar. She pulls a cigarette from the pack, lighting it with practiced ease, and leans against the brick wall, relief washing over her almost instantaneously as she inhales. She’s not a smoker, per say, but if someone were to offer her a cigarette, she wouldn’t say no. Who in their right mind would want to waste a perfectly good cigarette? That’s just common sense.   
Smoking on an empty stomach always makes her feel sick, but right now Dee really doesn’t have it in herself to care. The guys, as usual, have been stressing her out, and she’ll always take sickness over stress. Stress means that there’s fighting and yelling, usually directed at her, and that means coming up with ways to deflect and push it away, which is exhausting. She yells at and fights with the guys all the time, but when it’s directed at her she becomes stressed. That’s all. Sickness, on the other hand? That’s just her thing, by herself. No one’s around to judge or critique her, or make her feel small or like shriveling up. She deals with it by herself and on her own terms. She’s in total control, on no one else’s watch.   
Sometimes Dee’s mind wipes and time slips while she smokes, and she’ll look down to find her cigarette half smoked, or sometimes even completely gone. This time she finds herself staring down at a burnt out butt between her two fingers.   
She’s on her third cigarette when she hears Charlie’s voice coming from the door behind her.   
“So you’re smoking now?”   
This was going to be her last one. She was about to come back into work. Why are they always rushing her? Why can’t they just let her finish something for once? Now Charlie’s going to be making assumptions, and lecturing her, and Dee really doesn’t want to deal with that right now. Because that will just turn into fighting, and yelling, and stress, and god damnit, now she’s stressed again, so what was the point in even smoking the cigarettes in the first place? It’s like they never even happened. Now she has to start over.   
She steadies her breath in order to calm the agitated twitching of her hands and right knee. She can’t have Charlie asking questions.   
“That’s none of your business,” she quips, taking another puff to prove her point.   
Charlie folds his arms across his chest and sighs.   
So he’s going to be stubborn about this one. Great.   
“Well, whenever you’re done dicking around, we actually need your help around the bar, believe it or not,” he says.   
“Okay,” she responds, nodding her head, playing along. “Duly noted. Whenever I’m done dicking around, I’ll be sure to resume my usual role of doing absolutely nothing around the bar.”   
“That’s because you can’t wait tables to save your own life,” Charlie fires back, voiced raised, and Dee glares at him even though he’s right. She takes another breath to soothe her nerves, unwilling to participate in a screaming match with him today. Not only does he always win, but the sooner he leaves, the sooner she can get back to smoking and actually feel capable of getting some work done, which will leave everyone off her back and thereby keep her stress low. See? It’s simple. No one just ever gives her enough time to explain herself.   
“But you still have to help move and sort shit. That’s your job,” Charlie continues. “So if you wanna kill your lungs, do it on your own time, not the bar’s.” Without another word, he turns around and heads back inside.   
Dee smokes 2 more before she has the courage to join him.   
As soon as she starts walking, she feels queasiness in her stomach and a rushing in her head. It becomes apparent she needs to sit down, and she’s about to head over to the barstools when Dennis approaches her.   
“God, Dee, you reek. Have you been smoking?”   
“Yeah, so what? You and Mac smoke all the time.”   
“Yeah, but it just doesn’t work well on you,” Dennis admonishes, shaking his head as if he were speaking to a child. “You smell like shit.”   
Dee throws her arms up in confusion. “Dennis, you smoke! How can you not handle the smell?”   
Sometimes Dennis just isn’t worth arguing with.   
“When I’m actually smoking, yeah, but do you see a cigarette in my hand?” Dennis demands.   
“Do you want one?” She has to get him off her back somehow.   
Dennis’s blue eyes soften for a moment and he hesitates, looking down towards her pockets. Before he can respond, though, Mac’s jumping into the conversation.   
“Ew, Dee, are you smoking? God, you smell terrible.”   
It’s almost terrifying how quickly Dennis snaps back.   
“That’s what I’m telling her! Jesus, Dee, go take a shower or something. I think we can manage without you for a few hours. Just, at least change clothes. You smell horrible.”   
“No way I’m leaving, I need the pay,” she tells them.   
Dennis and Mac share an exasperated look.   
“I’ll be right back,” Mac says, still looking at Dennis. Then he walks away, leaving Dee even more confused.   
“Where’s he going?”  
“He’s getting some on-call cologne he keeps in the back. Frankly, I’d dump the whole bottle over you, but I don’t think that’d sit too well with Mac, so we’ll just spray a little bit on your clothes.”   
She has so many questions.   
“‘On-call’ cologne? You guys are ridiculous.” She heads towards the barstools and sits down, resting her elbows on the counter and closing her eyes, allowing a surge of nausea to pass. She hasn’t eaten in almost 2 days, and normally it doesn’t get this bad, but a lot’s been on her mind over the past few days. Now she wishes she had, though, because the effects of the cigarettes have long since faded thanks to Dennis’s bludgeoning of questions and have left her utterly drained.  
Too soon Mac taps on her shoulder and she begrudgingly turns around to face him.   
“Dee, you seriously smell like a tobacco farm was set on fire. Here, just-”  
He pops open the cap of his cologne, and why does he have cologne “on-call” here in the bar?, and sprays a few pumps on her. She instantly starts coughing, gagging on the intensity of the scent. She can taste it- it’s too much.   
“Much better,” he decides, disregarding her literally choking on his too strong cologne right in front of him for his satisfaction at having eliminated the smell.   
“What the hell was that for?” she cries, eyes watering, when she can finally speak.   
“You smelled like shit!” exclaims Mac, like it’s the most obvious and justifiable thing in the entire world. “Now, I’m not exactly comfortable with the idea of you walking around smelling like me, but anything’s better than you smelling like a walking cigarette.”  
“Oh, you’re uncomfortable?”   
“Yes, I had to waste perfectly good cologne on you.” Sarcasm is a foreign concept to Mac. “Don’t make me have to bust this out on you again- if you don’t have any cigarettes to share, then don’t bother smoking around the bar.”   
Dee wants to try something. “I have plenty to share.”  
Mac’s eyes widen the same way Dennis’s did, and the furrow of his brows fades. “You have some?” he asks, more softly than before.   
She was right.   
“Not for you,” she responds.   
Mac’s mouth opens slightly, and he almost seems to reach for her. “Why-”  
“Mac!” Charlie’s loud voice cuts through, breaking his trance. Mac turns to look at Charlie, previous stance already completely returned.   
“Hey, I have a-” Charlie stops and sniffs the air, looking at Dee bewilderedly. “Why do you smell like Mac whenever he’s about to go clubbing?”   
So that’s what the cologne is for.   
“Because he sprayed a shit ton of his cologne on me when he smelled my cigarettes,” she says, hoping Charlie will see eye to eye with her on this one.   
Charlie starts laughing, and it sounds forced, wrong, but as soon as he looks and sees that Mac isn’t laughing, he stops.   
“It isn’t funny, dude,” Mac protests, misinterpreting Charlie’s long-term fake laughter reflex for genuine amusement.   
Charlie looks down at the ground.   
“You think I wanted to waste my nice, expensive, high-end cologne on this bird?” Mac asks incredulously, and Dee thinks if she weren’t feeling worse she’d want to know how on earth he managed to afford “high-end” cologne whilst barely scraping by paycheck to paycheck.  
“No!” he answers for himself. “But, Charlie, she smelled like shit. She made the whole bar smell like a tobacco factory.”   
“I don’t say anything when you walk in here smelling like five different colognes just gang-banged your neck,” Dee snarls, and Charlie’s head snaps up at her, looking almost impressed with her comeback.   
“You can’t even wear perfume without ending up smelling like a community shower,” Mac snaps back.   
Before Dee can respond, she feels a rush of sickness. Her hand flies to her mouth as her head jerks forward, almost sending her falling off the stool. But there’s nothing for her to throw up, so she manages to swallow it down and wipes a trail of sweat off her forehead without barely missing a beat.   
“Whoa,” Charlie starts, stepping closer to her, but quickly stops and stands in place when Mac looks at him with an eyebrow raised.   
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Mac asks her. Charlie stays carefully silent and still.   
“Uh, the smoking. It makes me sick,” Dee gets out. It’s the truth.   
Mac shakes his head and sighs in annoyance. “That’s- Whatever. Why are you even still talking to me? Get back to work. And from now on, no more smoking unless you have some to share.”   
“You asked me a-”   
Mac’s already walking away.   
“Not even worth it,” Dee decides aloud. When Charlie returns his gaze to hers, she realizes that they’re alone together. Again.   
She expects him to say something, but his green eyes just bear into hers for a moment, unreadable as usual, before he turns around and follows Mac.   
Fantastic. Now that she’s alone, she can just rest for a minute. She slumps against the counter, laying her head down atop her arms and closing her eyes.   
“Dee. Dee!”   
She groans, digging her nails into the palms of her hands and scrunching her eyes before sitting up and turning towards Dennis’s voice.   
“What?” Her voice comes out more gravelly than she intended, but fortunately, Dennis appears indifferent.   
He does, however, critique her appearance. Dee honestly should’ve seen it coming, given her current condition.   
“Whoa, okay. First of all, you look like shit. Would it kill you to put a little makeup on? You’re not 21 anymore.”   
She notices how he didn’t say “we’re.”   
“I am wearing makeup,” she tells him exasperatedly. They’ve been through this together too many times.   
Dennis backtracks. “You’re- Wait, what? You are?”  
Dee nods slowly, eyes widening in sarcastic surprise at him. She just wants him to yell at her and be done. Not drag it out, which is what he’s clearly decided to do today.   
“Really? Well, then you either need to coat your foundation more generously or pick out a shade that actually matches your skin tone, because you look pale as shit.”  
“What do you want?”   
“We need your help bringing in boxes. I know you’re normally off the hook for all things manual labor, but-” Dee rolls her eyes at this- “Charlie’s on rat detail down in the basement right now, and we need every set of hands we got ‘cause Frank’s not tipping the guy any more than we have to.”   
Dee sighs. “Fine.”   
She can normally hold her own just fine; she’s been to the gym. She’s taken out people in fights before; she’s tough. But today, the box she’s given might just be the heaviest thing she’s ever had to lift. Her shoulders immediately sag with the weight, her arms burn with pain, and she stumbles along after Mac, trying not to fall.  
“Where are we taking these?” she asks, strained.   
“In the back,” Mac responds, and Dee groans when she remembers there’s still several more boxes they each have to lug in.   
By her fourth box, her forehead’s covered in a thin layer of sweat and she places her hands on her knees once she finally sets it down.  
“Can I take a break?” she pants, standing up straight and pushing her hair back.   
Dennis pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is why we need Charlie . . . No, you cannot take a break. We’re almost done.”   
Once all the boxes have been moved, Dee finds her way back to the barstools to sit down. She sees Charlie emerge from the basement with his rat stick they got him, of course right when they’ve finished. Of course.   
“Hey man, we needed you up here,” greets Mac.   
“Yeah, Dee can’t carry boxes for shit,” agrees Dennis. They snigger, and Frank joins.   
Charlie looks from them to Dee confusedly.   
“They were heavy!” an indignant Dee insists, placing a hand on her aching stomach. “What was in those, anyway, rocks?”  
Dennis glances at Mac and Frank. “That’s none of your business.”   
“If I had to haul them all the way across the goddamn bar with you guys, then it is my business,” argues Dee, frustration bubbling inside her.   
“We needed the help. I couldn’t tip the guy a million dollars, what, do you expect me to be made of money?” exclaims Frank.   
Mac laughs. “Yeah, Dee, the man’s not made of money,” he tells her.   
“I should at least get a piece of the action ‘cause I helped,” she says.   
Mac looks uncomfortable. Frank looks at Dennis expectantly, and Dennis inhales through his teeth and shakes his head. “Mm . . . No. Too many people.”   
“What on earth is such a big secret you can’t even tell me or Charlie?”   
“Charlie’s in on it,” says Frank.   
“Huh? No, I’m not,” Charlie speaks up.   
Dennis raises an eyebrow. “Huh? Really? I thought we- Okay. Never mind, then.”   
Dee’s angry for a moment, but she shoves it down quickly and moves on. She has to. She’d go crazy otherwise.   
She considers going out and getting something to eat, because she really doesn’t feel good now, and if she keeps this up the guys will start yelling at her and they’ll start fighting, and she really doesn’t want that. She doesn’t have money on her, though, and she knows that none of the guys would take her if their lives depended on it, so she just settles for sitting against the counter again and attempting to regain her energy.   
She hunches over from the nausea swimming in her stomach, and she hopes that none of the guys start pestering her to get back to work. She just needs a moment to herself, and then she’ll be fine.   
“Dee?”   
God damnit.   
“What is it, Charlie?” she asks, intending only to sound mildly annoyed, but instead coming across as wholly worn out.   
“Are you okay? Do you need to take a break or something?”   
More undeserved concern from Charlie. Her stomach twists and her head buzzes.   
“Yeah, ‘m good,” she replies tersely. “Just, tired from lugging all the boxes.”  
She’s aware that her current physical state doesn’t exactly bid well for her case, but she needs to get Charlie off her back somehow, no matter how good his kind treatment might make her feel.   
Charlie narrows his eyes at her. “I bet they were.”   
He falls silent after that, which inadvertently provokes a staring match between the 2. Dee twitches under his gaze, folding her arms across her chest defensively and crossing one leg over the other, bouncing one foot nervously.   
“Yeah. I’m . . . Gonna go get some water,” she finally says, the crack in her voice cutting through the silence like a steak knife.   
Charlie nods. “Okay. I’m gonna get back to work.”   
“That’s a good idea. You should do that.”   
“I will.”   
“And I’m gonna get my water. Cause my throat’s parched from lifting all those boxes.”   
“I’m sure it is.”   
“Yeah.”   
When Charlie is still stubbornly standing in front of Dee a few moments later, she decides to put on a performance in standing up even as pain screams through her joints and brightening her facial expression in order to emphasize just how fine she actually is, and she widens her eyes from their deadened state she’s sure they were previously in.  
Charlie purses his lips and nods at her one last time before turning around and heading off to resume his duties. Dee breathes out a sigh of relief, quickly gripping the counter for support. She can’t let him see her weak, or sick, or in pain. Because then he’ll start swarming her and asking her if she’s alright, and being nice to her, and she can’t have that. She can’t have any more of his careful glances, or concerned questions, or even decent civility anymore. She needs him to go back to screaming at her and berating her with the other guys like normal.   
Work. Get back to work, she remembers. She needs to take her mind off Charlie. But before she can take another step forward, a rush of dizziness hits her, and she stumbles on her feet, eyes slipping closed and body hitting the ground with a hard thud. 

\--------------

The next thing she registers is a sharp pain in her side, which she realizes is someone kicking her.   
“Dee. Dee! Dee, god dammit, wake up!”   
She groans, rolling away from Dennis’s shouts and kicks, and squints her eyes shut to block out her splitting headache.   
“Oh my god.” His heavily incensed voice tightens Dee’s chest. “What the hell are you doing?” he exclaims irritably, like she’s just messing around, trying to antagonize him like when they were kids.   
She pries her eyes open and slowly sits up, deciding it’s time to get this over with. Embarrassment burns through her as she wonders how on earth she’s going to explain herself this time. Surely, all the guys will hold this over her head for at least the next few weeks. Probably longer. She passed out, plain and simple. That’s the whole of it. There’s no excuse she can use for validation, no story she can conjure on the spot that can cover any questions they may ask. She pushed herself too far, and now she’s paying for it. Stupid, stupid.   
Dennis rolls his eyes, and Charlie rushes over to her side, Mac tight on his tail. But while Mac stops and stands next to Dennis, staring down at her skeptically, Charlie goes to kneel down beside her, green eyes widened in worry.   
“Oh my god, Dee! What happened?” He sounds far too urgent for her liking. She involuntarily flinches from him, drawing in on herself.   
“I-I-”  
“Did you pass out?”   
“Little bit, yeah.” Her voice comes out small. She rubs her pounding head.   
Charlie holds a hand out for her to take, and she grasps it hesitantly, uncomfortably aware of how her clammy her fingers must feel in his dry, warm ones. As soon as she stands upright, she yanks her hand from Charlie’s as if it burned her. Their gazes join for half a second before she hastily breaks eye contact.   
“Dee, what were you doing on the floor?” asks a thoroughly confused Mac.   
“Because I thought it’d be fun to take a nap, dumbass,” she snaps back   
sarcastically.   
“Because you wanted to- What? Dee, what’s going on with you?” asks Charlie, almost frustratedly.   
“My god, you’re pathetic,” sighs Dennis, shaking his head. “You’re not starving yourself again, are you?”  
Her pulse upticks. “I’m not starving myself.”   
“Yeah, pretty sure you are,” he argues, having the audacity to look affronted when he himself in reality has intentionally starved himself on multiple occasions. “You’re showing all the signs. You’re sweating, you’re pale . . . But, Dee, you do realize that not eating isn’t just gonna magically solve your looks problem, right?”  
“Yeah, that’s more of a genetic thing,” Mac chimes in.   
“We have the same genes,” Dee reminds him impatiently.   
Dennis chuckles. “That may be true, but Dee, I think anyone with working eyes can see that I’m clearly the more attractive of the 2 of us.”   
Mac nods in agreement.   
Frank puts his newspaper down and walks out from behind the bar to join them.   
“Deandra, you starvin’ yourself? You’re already too thin!” he exclaims.   
“I’m not starving myself! God . . . I’m just a little under the weather. I’m tired,” Dee defends, maintaining eye contact with Dennis as if she were willing him to believe her. She’s always been an incredible manipulator, but, then again, so has Dennis.   
“Bullshit!” cries Charlie. “She is starving herself, and she was starving herself the other day, too.”   
Dee looks at him in shock. That wasn’t his information to share. What right did he have to say that? Now he’s going to have the other guys giving her more shit about not eating, telling her that she’s fat no matter how much the number on the scale drops, and they’ll start yelling, and fighting-  
Charlie runs a hand through his disheveled hair, distress etched clearly on his face. Because of her? No, she just inconvenienced everyone as usual, interrupted the cycle of their work. Dennis is just annoyed at her making a fool of herself; his secondhand embarrassment is probably piling on more by the second. She needs to be more careful with slimming down from now on, though, because she can’t afford to get carried away again.   
Dennis shakes his head, almost in mock sympathy, tsk-ing at her. “Don’t even bother denying it to me. I know you better than you know yourself, and, Dee, hear me when I say that your method of improving your looks is . . . Failing. Miserably.”  
“Yeah, Dee, ugly people are ugly. No amount of dieting is going to change that,” adds Mac, as if she were planning on starting Adkins or something.   
“The sooner you embrace yourself for who you are, the happier you’ll be,” Frank tells her tenderly, placing a hand on her shoulder in what Dee supposes was meant to be a comforting gesture. She flinches from the touch.   
“What the hell?” The quietness of Charlie’s voice captures all their attention. Dennis and Mac turn to stare at him, confusion evident on their expressions. “She just passed out from not eating, and you’re calling her ugly?”   
Dee tenses. A very small part of her feels warm inside for Charlie’s sticking up of her, but the other 99% accumulates more stress by the second and vigorously prepares to use any means necessary to shut him up.   
“Uh, yeah,” Mac replies. “We were explaining that it’s hopeless to-”  
“I think what he’s trying to say is, Dee, we’re trying to help you. You wanna look more youthful and attractive? You’re not gonna do it looking like that,” Dennis says earnestly.   
“No, absolutely not,” agrees Mac. “Honestly, if you wanna eat, then go ahead and eat, because even that was better than this.”   
It hurts, but Dee knows he means well, so she buries it deep down with everything else.   
“Dude, you’re really not helping,” Charlie interjects with a fair amount of   
incredulity. Dee wonders if she’s delirious for internally swelling with delight at his attempts to defend her honor.   
“Huh?” asks Dennis. “We’re telling her-”  
“And you guys are over here saying she’s ugly and shit. No one asked if she was alright, or if she needed anything.”  
Mac’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.   
“Are you saying we should lie to Dee about her appearance to make her feel better?” Dennis asks him.   
“No! I mean, don’t talk about her appearance, at all. You guys are always bringing it up even when it’s completely irrelevant to the conversation,” Charlie responds, looking Dennis straight in the eye.   
“This is a situation that calls for it because today’s events have resulted directly from her physical insecurities,” Dennis explains, and Dee hates to admit it, but he’s pretty spot on. She and Dennis are one and the same in a lot of ways. Any personal stuff he may expose about her he’s almost certainly already experienced himself.   
Her forehead still throbs angrily, and her elbows still ache from where they smacked onto the ground earlier. Fatigue hangs heavily over her body, and she sways slightly on the spot in spite of her best efforts to appear recovered.   
“Dee is sick, and she needs our help,” Dennis continues, and the sincerity in his tone sends a chill down her spine. He turns towards her, and she bristles at the calculating look in his eyes. “I’m gonna get you on my fitness plan as soon as possible. You’ll be in tip top shape in no time.”  
“I’m not exercising with you if that’s what you’re suggesting,” she says.   
Dennis raises an eyebrow. “Huh? No, you’re not- Not with me. I meant on your own. You have a gym membership, right?”  
“Never in my entire life have I ever had a gym membership.”   
Dennis’s patience visibly thins. “Okay, well, I don’t know, then- Do it at our place or something, I don’t give a shit. Just as long as I’m not around to see it.”   
Dee sighs.   
“Clearly, exercise isn’t the problem, it’s food,” Charlie chimes in, so casually that Dee suspects he’s actually veiling his anger. He can be extremely passive aggressive when he wants to be, and Dee’s been on the receiving end far too many times for her liking.   
Frank’s already gone back to his newspaper. If the conversation doesn’t quickly lead to either money or women, he loses interest in minutes.   
“What? I know she’s not eating, Charlie, I’m just saying that she needs to exercise instead to keep her body healthy.”   
“No, she doesn’t need to exercise. She just needs to eat,” Charlie argues, agitation growing clearer in his tone.  
“Yes, she does- The whole problem is-” Dennis throws his hands up in frustration. “She’s all worn out from lack of endurance. My plan is specifically designed to strengthen her endurance while simultaneously providing maximum efficiency for her physical toning.”  
“Toning?” exclaims Dee. “Are you kidding me?”  
“Shut up, bird,” retaliates Mac. Dennis and Frank share a laugh with him, but Charlie just stands and looks baffled.   
“She doesn’t need to be fast tracked through your fitness regimen to lose more weight, she just needs to eat,” he says.   
“I understand that!” exclaims Dennis. “I’m just saying that a better way for her to get the results she wants is to exercise, because then she’ll-” He sighs, running a hand through his tousled dirty blonde hair. “You know what? Let’s just ask her herself.” He turns towards her. “Dee, when was the last time you ate something?”   
“Yesterday afternoon,” she lies. It was the night before yesterday.   
“Really?” The raised pitch at the end of the question indicates his high level of surprise. “That doesn’t actually seem too bad to me.”   
“What?” Charlie’s astounded. “Dude, that’s- When was the last time you ate something?”   
“Well, this morning,” Dennis says, “but I’m not trying to lose weight right now. My body is perfectly proportional. In fact, I’ve never exercised more often than I am right now. My abdominal muscles have never looked better.”  
“It’s true,” Mac supplies. “He’s almost working out as much as me. He can almost match me in pushups now.”   
“Okay, well, that’s just simply not true,” refutes Dennis. “You have never once been able to do as many push-ups as me.”  
“Oh, bullshit!” exclaims Mac, pointing at him angrily. “That’s bullshit! I’m way more ripped than you, dude; your glamor muscles don’t even begin to compare to mine.”   
“Mac, Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to say it to you?” Dennis face palms. “Push-ups are all about your core. And we both know you’re severely lacking in that department.”  
“I work out my core!”  
If Dee had a nickle for every time Dennis and Mac had this conversation, she wouldn’t still be stuck in her godforsaken apartment with them listening to them scream it out every god damned day.   
“I’m gonna have to call bullshit on that,” Frank jumps in, setting his newspaper down.   
“What?” Mac cries. “Frank, what the hell do you even know about working out?” He turns to Charlie. “Bro, I bet he doesn’t even know what a push-up looks like.”   
“You didn’t know me back in my day,” Frank insists irritably. “I had a body that would’ve put all of you twinks to shame.”   
“Oh, yeah,” Mac barks sarcastically. “I’m sure all 4 feet of you were very intimidating.”   
“You wanna talk about intimidating? Twenty dollars says I can take your wimpy ass out right here, right now. I still got it! Let’s go, you and me!” Frank yells, leaning over the counter at him.   
Mac steps closer to him, raising his voice as he yells back, and the two proceed to engage in an angry screaming match at each other, complete with obscenities, slurs, and exaggerated hand gestures, all up until Dennis cuts in.   
“Guys!”  
Mac and Frank simmer down, albeit reluctantly, and give Dennis their attention.   
“We’re straying from the point,” Dennis continues. “What I’m saying, Charlie, is that Dee’s eating habits isn’t the issue that needs to be resolved.”  
“They absolutely do need to be resolved-”  
“She seems to be eating alright to me. I mean, yeah, I was suspicious of something when I found her passed out on the floor, but based on what she just told me, her eating habits honestly seem pretty normal.”   
“That’s not normal,” says Charlie. “You’re not supposed to go 24 hours without eating.”   
It’s been nearly 48.   
“I’m not- That’s not-” Dennis, now visibly vexed, gestures to Dee once again. “Dee just needs a couple good months on my plan and she’ll be fine.”  
“She doesn’t need any months on your plan. This is obviously some serious shit she has going on, and you guys are just making it about exercising, and dude’s bodies and shit,” he says.   
“We were talking about working out, obviously we were going to get on the subject of men’s bodies,” Mac defends.   
“Yeah, we were talking about our bodies because it’s my fitness plan, and it’s working out pretty well for us,” Dennis adds.   
“Well, that’s because you- Wait. Us?” asks Charlie.  
“Yeah, I got Mac on it, too.”  
“Well, yeah, but it’s not just his fitness plan,” says Mac. “I’ve added in a few tweaks, made it more better-”  
“No, you made some suggestions, to which I immediately rejected,” Dennis corrects.   
Mac purses his lips and shrugs.   
“Anyway, we’re getting off topic,” he continues sharply. “Dee, are you on board or not?”  
“On board?” Dee has no desire whatsoever to work out anywhere near her brother or Mac and listen to their overly enthusiastic discussions on importance of muscle gain for hours on end.   
“Yeah. You want me to help you get started working out on my fitness plan or not?” Dennis asks her.   
“Absolutely not,” she answers.   
“Why wouldn’t you want to be on it?” Mac exclaims incredulously. “Dee, out of all of us, you clearly need it the most.”   
“Yeah,” interjects Frank. “You need to pack some muscle on.”  
“I was actually thinking she could stand to lose a few,” Mac says, and just like that, any appetite Dee might have had from not eating for 2 days is gone.   
“Okay, bro, come on. Back off,” says Charlie, calmly. Too calmly.   
Dee stares at him, unable to help herself.   
“What?” asks Mac, agitatedly. “What’s your problem, dude?”  
“It’s just not that funny. You can’t joke about someone’s weight like that.” It unsettles Dee how well Charlie contains his frustration. That never, ever happens.   
“What? Jokes? We’re not- What’re you talking about?” inquires Dennis, furrowing his eyebrows perplexedly.   
“Yeah, why would we joke about something like that?” asks Mac.   
“Cause it’s so ridiculous that I thought it was just one of your bits,” Charlie answers.   
“What’s ridiculous?”  
“There’s nothing ridiculous about it!”   
“Yeah, what’re you- Charlie, we’re being completely serious, and the fact that you’re not seeing how serious we’re being is actually a little concerning,” Dennis says.   
“I thought you were doing that thing, y’know, like when you all call her a bird, and then have a good laugh,” says Charlie, and now Dee’s confused. He thought they were kidding?  
“We’re not kidding when we say that, either,” says Mac.   
“Yeah, let’s get one thing perfectly clear right now,” Dennis says. “We never joke about Dee. In any context, or situation, ever. You with me on that?”   
“Okay, well then why were you saying all that shit?” Charlie asks them, voice getting higher like it does when he’s bothered by something. Dee feels nervousness fluttering inside her.   
“Same reason we always say it- To help her,” Dennis answers like it’s obvious. When he’s greeted only with Charlie’s perturbed expression, he continues, raising his voice, “What? With all that talk about being an actress, she has to at least have some good looks. Those are the only ones that make it in Hollywood.”   
“Honestly, Dennis, at this point, I don’t know if she can be helped,” Mac says quietly. “There’s only so much you can do before someone just proves themselves to be hopeless.”   
“Dude, I think you’ve said that to her enough times,” says Charlie, and Dee’s heart leaps into her throat.  
Mac and Dennis both stop and turn to stare at him.   
“What the hell, dude?” Mac squawks incredulously. “I’m just saying it like it is.”   
“Are you saying you’d rather let Dee live in denial of her problem? The sooner she faces it, the better off we’ll all be,” Dennis insists.   
“I don’t even know what problem you’re talking about anymore,” says Charlie.   
“Uh, her completely warped perception of her own body?” Dennis asks him condescendingly. “See, earlier, you thought our comments on her appearance were jokes, and, I’ll say again, Mac and I never joke about Dee. Ever.”  
Dee scratches her head and hones in her gaze on a point on the ground.   
“We said that stuff cause we’re trying to explain how oblivious she is to her own unattractiveness,” Dennis continues matter-of-factly. “It’s clear to me that she’s been trying to get prettier, but enhancing her features isn’t working. You actually have to have somewhat decent looks to do that.”   
Dee just wants to leave so she can go empty what little contents she has left in her stomach.   
“Okay, seriously dude, lay off.” Charlie sounds even more pissed now, and Dee feels her eyes widen in surprise. Why is he still defending her? She squirms uncomfortably.   
“Whoa, alright,” Dennis says cautiously, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “Calm down.”   
“Yeah, bro, chill out. It’s just Dee,” says Mac.   
“Just Dee? You guys aren’t- You’re not-” Charlie can’t even seem to get his words out right. “Just, stop it.”   
“Stop what?” Mac asks confusedly.   
“Yeah, Charlie, we’re just saying what we usually say,” Dennis adds, but suspicion still twinkles in his eyes. Dee’s heart jumps again.   
“Well, it’s not helping,” Charlie says back, raising his eyebrows and standing up straighter as if to challenge Dennis.   
Dennis, for once, is speechless. He says nothing; in fact, if anything, he backs away slightly from Charlie.   
Once a silence long enough has passed that Charlie sees fit, he backs down, and turns towards Dee.   
“Dee, come on.” He gestures for her to follow him.   
Dee’s words tumble out in a jumbled mess. “Wait, what? What’re we- Charlie, where are we going?”   
“Just come on.”   
Confusion increasing by the second, Dee follows him out of the bar. Her options were between him and the other guys. What was she supposed to do? 

\-----------------

 

Dee bounces her right leg continuously underneath the table, taking extra caution to make sure her legs never so much as brush Charlie’s, hyper aware of the severe lack of space between their chairs and their feet.   
“How’s your sandwich?” he asks her, tone controlled. Dee swallows, mouth suddenly feeling dry.   
“It’s fine,” she quips shortly, taking another bite to show him just how fine it is. When she’s about to take a second bite, he reminds her, “You don’t have to finish it if you don’t want to.”   
“Thanks,” she says, intentionally sarcastic. She places it down and takes a small sip of water. She’ll be able to finish it; it’ll just take her a while. Because this isn’t a real problem she has. She doesn’t have an actual eating problem, she just doesn’t like it sometimes. That’s all.   
Charlie’s still watching her. His green eyes haven’t left hers, and yet he seems guarded. Like he’s assessing her or something and doesn’t want her to see. She feels like a little kid again when her mother used to scold her for eating too much, except now, funnily enough, it’s the opposite.   
The silence is stifling. Dee breaks eye contact, staring down at her plate determinedly.   
“So . . .” Charlie trails off awkwardly as he picks up his soda and slurps through his straw obnoxiously. Anything to fill the silence, she supposes.   
“So . . .” Dee prompts, lifting up a hand as if gesturing him to continue.   
“Uh . . .” Charlie starts. “Are you feeling any better?” he asks, sounding uncertain.   
Dee finds herself nodding automatically. Any questions oriented towards her feelings, or health, she’ll always respond with a nod.   
“Yeah. Little bit,” she lies, before picking up her sandwich and taking another bite, attempting to suppress a wince as she swallows. If this is what it takes to placate him, then she can handle it as long as it means they go back to normal after this.   
She finds it funny that Charlie thinks just a simple meal will erase her problems, or return her appetite. If anything, she feels sicker, but she keeps eating, because then he won’t be worrying over her anymore and she won’t be bothering him and upsetting the balance of their group dynamic or interrupting the flow of their work.   
“That’s good,” he responds, probably just for something to say. Dee nods along.   
“So, do you wanna do something after this? Or should you just drop me back off at the bar?” he asks, and confusion floods Dee.   
“Wait, why wouldn’t I come with you?”  
Charlie looks surprised she even asked. “Uh, because you’re taking a sick day? I thought that was implied when you left, y’know, ‘cause you kinda freaked everybody out, when you . . . Fainted. Plus, you should probably get some rest.”  
“I don’t need a sick day,” Dee says quickly. “I’m fine, I’m all good.”  
“Just take it,” he advises her. “Frank’s probably gonna expect you back at work tomorrow, anyway, so you might as well take advantage of it while you can.”   
He raises a fair point. She sighs and shrugs.   
“That’s true.”   
“Yeah,” says Charlie. “Y’know, he’s honestly been bothering me a lot lately. He’s been weird, and different, and we don’t even have our weekly late night talks anymore.”   
A most perplexed Dee struggles to hold in a snort. “What weekly late night talks?”   
Charlie becomes visibly more animated. “Our- Oh, we always have them. It’s these things where every like, Thursday or Friday night, we’ll stay up really late talking about random shit, sometimes all night long. But sometimes it gets too deep and philosophical, and Frank’ll tell me to cut out the conspiracist bullshit or something.”   
Dee laughs in spite of herself. “Conspiracies?” She didn’t know that he thought about conspiracies. Or that he had late night talks with anyone, ever, let alone Frank. The thought of Charlie actually thinking about real life things, however funny, makes her feel warm inside.   
“Yeah, like the one where . . .” Charlie pauses and rubs his chin in thought. Dee internally slaps herself for finding it cute.   
“Oh!” Charlie claps his hands together like he does when he’s excited. “The one where there’s this like, supposed secret organization conspiring to overthrow the government, what’s the name again? Lumi- Illum-”  
“Illuminati?” Dee assists.   
“There it is,” says Charlie, nodding in recognition. “I don’t really know how it all works, but it’s interesting to talk about. I like talking about that stuff more for the thrill of the mystery than anything else, y’know? Because if it were all proven false, then it wouldn’t be any fun because then everybody would be disputing it. You wouldn’t be able to say that you didn’t know for sure. Cause if you think about it, you really don’t, and the fact that we can say we aren’t technically wrong makes it all the more interesting to talk about.”   
Dee finds herself nodding in agreement without ever having registered she was doing so. She feels herself calming down, unwinding in his presence, letting his words sink in. Right now, they’re just them, and they’re doing their thing, and no outside complications nor any elephants in any rooms are anxiously anticipating their acknowledgement. Sitting here, simply listening to Charlie talk, is soothing to her. She runs a hand through her hair nervously, picking up her sandwich again.   
“It really is about the thrill of the mystery,” she agrees, taking a bite and swallowing thickly before folding her arms over her stomach.   
“Yeah, because-” Charlie’s eyebrows furrow. “Are you okay?”   
“Yeah, ‘m good,” Dee assures him, sitting up more straightly in her chair. “I’m just- Full.” She looks down again at her sandwich. It’s barely half gone.   
His eyes narrow for a split second before returning to normal. “You wanna get it to go?” he asks. “You can take it home, finish it later if you want.”   
“Okay, sure,” she says, hesitantly. She can try refrigerating it, but there’s a strong chance that Mac will end up beating her to it. Charlie doesn’t need to know that, though, so Dee decides it’s better to leave him comforted by the knowledge that she fully intends on finishing the sandwich later rather than confessing that he (so, Frank) essentially just bought Mac his next midmorning snack.   
“Cool,” Charlie says easily. Dee appreciates that he doesn’t pry, or ask questions, or, god forbid, ask her to eat more. He leaves it alone for once.   
They gather their things, stand up, and quietly depart the sub shop. Dee has to physically bite back a snide remark when Charlie holds the door open for her on their way out, even though she feels herself blushing. They start walking back to where Charlie parked her car, and when Charlie places a hand on her back to guide her, she almost internally combusts.   
“Are you good to drive?” he asks her, and Dee shrugs as casually as she can with his hand on her back.   
“Yeah,” she replies breezily, plastering on a soft smile. “Thanks for lunch, by the way,” she continues, like lunch is a regular part of her routine. “The least I could do is give you a ride back to Paddy’s.”   
“Oh, no problem,” Charlie says, removing his hand and placing them both in his pockets.   
She can be nice to him knowing that once she drops him off, things will go back to normal. They did their whole song and dance, Charlie overstepped his boundaries and softened his tone with her a little too much, raised everyone’s suspicions slightly too highly, inflicted some damage. Now it’s done, it’s over. They can go back to poking fun at each other with the rest of the gang and making biting, hurtful remarks that hit a little too close to home, each rushing to get the words out faster than the other in feeble hopes of getting the guys to prey on the other’s insecurities first. Dee thinks she’s ready now for things to go back to the way they were. She had a taste of what it was like to have Charlie treat her kindly, and however nice it may have felt, it’s time for it to end. Things have to go back to normal eventually. She shudders when she remembers just how much better Charlie has been making her feel lately, but it doesn’t even matter, because it can’t continue any longer. He can’t do nice things for her anymore like take her out to eat or defend her honor in front of the guys, because it shows he cares, and Dee can’t have that. The smallest indication of care from him terrifies the living daylights out of her, mainly because she doesn’t know what it means coming from him because he’s always guarded his deeper emotions surprisingly well. No one can ever read him.   
Now, Dee always has to know what people mean when it comes to situations like these. She’s been in control of every sexual and romantic relationship she’s ever engaged in; she’s called the shots, she’s decided just how much, or how little, she’s wanted from her partners, and she’s never, ever, for the life of her, given any of them so much as the slightest upper hand. The day she dangles for a man is the day she dies. But Charlie, he’s a mystery. She can’t read his expressions nor decipher what he wants from her. Because no matter what she gives him, or tells him, no matter how correct the answers to his questions may seem, he refuses to back down. She can’t shake him off, and that’s something that’s always been very important for Dee, is the ability to cut off contact as soon as she sees fit, and meeting little to no resistance.   
Charlie hasn’t fucking listened to her.   
“Hey, I think we go this way,” he says, abruptly cutting into her train of thought.   
“Huh?”   
“Come this way,” he repeats, gently tugging her arm to get her to change direction and follow him. They chat amicably all the way back to the car, and then fall into a comfortable silence on the drive back to Paddy’s apart from Charlie’s occasional commentary on random sightings that are far past Dee’s rearview mirror by the time he can correctly identify what he’s even talking about in the first place. When Dee drops him off, though, he almost seems to retreat into himself, telling her in a quieted tone through the window to drink lots of water and get plenty of rest.   
“Okay? I’ll try my best,” she says sarcastically, curiosity coursing through her veins. She drove him back, he got out of the car. Why hasn’t he gone back to normal yet?   
“Seriously,” he says, and Dee’s taken aback. “And, try to eat something else today. Please try. Only if you can.”   
Her heart skips a beat. It’s for work, she reminds herself. She has to be in better condition for work.   
“Alright. I will. Jeez,” she lies, nervous laughter brewing in the back of her throat. Charlie looks at her for a second like he’s not sure he believes her, but fortunately he accepts her answer and turns around, heading into the bar. Dee sighs and rolls her window back up. That was it. That had to be. Now, next time she sees Charlie, he’ll treat her normally again, and they can all fall back into their usual, easy way of things. Dee almost feels relieved. Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please feel free to drop a review, tell me your thoughts! I love feedback, and seeing you guys enjoy my writing means everything to me. In the mean time, hit up my chardee trash ass on [tumblr](http://lydiasilinski.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What can I say, guys? I have no excuse. Real life took me by storm. I promise I have not given up on this story, and I know it's been a while but I will say that my mental state now, and my current point in my life, are both a lot better than they were when I first started writing this story. I hope after this my updates will be able to come out more frequently again, because I love writing for you guys even more than I do for myself. Each review I read, every happy reaction I get to this story puts the biggest smile on my face. Okay I'm going to stop this rant now before I start sounding too cheesy but I love you guys, I love your constant support, and I hope you guys enjoy reading this chapter as much as I did writing it :)  
> FAIR WARNING it does get a little intense, cause I really amped up the angst on this one so strap in. Sorry in advance lol

It’s been 7 whole days since Charlie has had any romantic thoughts about the waitress, and he wouldn’t be so curious about this newfound lack of adoration for her if it didn’t match the exact number of days it’s been since he and Dee last had sex. _That’s_ what he can’t seem to get off his mind- that night exactly a week ago, when he and Dee crossed a line they wouldn’t be able to come back from. But Charlie isn’t even sure he _wants_ to come back. The problem lies in the fact that ever since that night, Dee hasn’t been able to stop ignoring him.

He can’t get the picture of her out of his head. He can’t take his mind off the feeling of her body relaxing under his tender touch, and he can almost taste the warmth she radiated while kissing her. But when the next morning came along, any affection that she might have hinted at him the night before was swiftly, cruelly, wiped away.

___

 

_Dee’s hands softly caress Charlie’s stubble as she pulls him back on the bed, and Charlie suspects that the unusual degree of gentleness to her touch is only due to the unusually high amount of alcohol that she’s had to drink tonight, but his own alcoholic intake has dulled his senses just enough for him to accept the gesture without question. He has his arms wrapped firmly around her waist as he breathes in the scent of her neck, and for a split second he worries he’s squeezing her too tightly but she doesn’t seem to mind because the closer he pulls her to his body, the more responsive she seems to become. Her hands slowly travel through his hair, tugging a few strands as she pushes forward to deepen the kiss. Her nails leave a tickling sensation on his scalp, and his mouth moves to the side of her lips to place kisses down her cheeks, around her neck, and across her collar bones. She lets out a heavy breath underneath him as he returns his lips to her mouth to surge in for another kiss, and all he can think about is how good all of this feels, how right all of this feels._

_Dee is not a soft kisser by any means. Her tongue grips his fervently, and their teeth clash in an urgent battle for dominance. It’s messy and sloppy, and tinted too strongly with the taste of tequila, but Charlie is far too distracted by the tingling sensation beneath his belt to pay the flavor of Dee’s mouth any mind. He only wants to be closer to her, impossibly closer, and he can’t seem to fend off the image of ripping all her clothes off, each and every useless garment, until the only thing that remains between their skins are the very atoms of the air themselves. All he knows is that having Dee right here in in his bed right now is something that he hasn’t even realized that he’s wanted for a long, long time, and that now that it’s happening he doesn’t plan on giving it up any time soon. She pulls away from him to breathe, eyes sparkling with a kind of lust so dangerously inviting it almost erases all his bad memories he has associated with sexual experience from his past. Almost._

_Those bright, blue eyes are so different than any others that he’s ever seen, and her soft, slim body is so beautiful to him. He wants to be with her, in every sense of the word that is possible, and right now in his drunken state he can’t believe they haven’t thought of doing this sooner. His hands begin to slide back up her sides and push her forward, as to guide her into sitting back up, and he tugs impatiently on the material of her shirt as to wordlessly demand her to remove it._

_“Get this off, Dee,” he mutters aloud before he can prevent himself from saying it._

_“I’ll get you off,” Dee retorts in response, and her words are so slurred that for a brief moment Charlie can see clearly just how unfocused her gaze is and wonders whether this is actually a smart idea, but as soon as Dee sits up and begins to pull her shirt off the thought vacates his mind. She punctuates her point by tossing it as far away from their small futon as her uncoordinated arms can throw it, and Charlie can actually feel his mouth gaping at the sight of her breasts now on full display that are pressed tightly together by the padding of her push-up bra._

_“You get that off,” Charlie finds himself saying breathlessly, pointing at her bra. When he sees Dee laugh in response, he realizes that her arms are already reached behind her back attempting to unclasp the strap. The effects of the alcohol are seated right in that sweet spot where he is just coherent enough to realize that surely nothing good could come of tonight, yet still intoxicated enough to disregard the consequences._

_When Dee removes her bra, Charlie’s eyes widen in admiration at what he sees. As he leans forward to palm at her breasts, his mouth meets hers once again for another passionate, lust-driven kiss. Once her breathing quickens enough he pulls her in even closer to get more of that physical contact he’s been so desperately craving from her. All this time, all these years, his subtle mannerisms around her of closing the space in between them or naturally finding himself gravitating towards her presence had a reason, he’s beginning to realize. Charlie wonders how long he’s actually been attracted to her and just never realized it, and he wonders if Dee feels to any degree the same._  
_His thoughts are interrupted by Dee breaking the kiss and putting her arms, which were previously rested on his sides, on his shoulders to steady herself._

_“Take your shirt off, Charlie,” she instructs him, all while barely able to maintain eye contact. Charlie pushes down the possibility of her inability to look him in the eye as a side effect of the alcohol and chalks it up to embarrassment instead because that’s something he can actually wrap his head around._

_“Why?” he finds himself asking._

_“Why?” she mimics with a snort. “C’mon.”_

_She begins to pull the material of his tee shirt up over his head, and Charlie finds himself thoughtlessly complying with her demands as he lifts his arms up to aid her in removing it. The second his head passes through the hole of the shirt he feels naked, uncomfortable, exposed. He wonders if this is how Dee feels every time she takes her shirt off for a man, or if she’s stuffed down her feelings so deep that she doesn’t even register it anymore. Because, he reasons, you would have to feel somewhat exposed when displaying your bare chest to another person, and this exposure must feel somewhat bothersome before you learn to cope with it, right? But Dee doesn’t look bothered at all as she gets on her knees and leers over Charlie, running a hand up his bare, exposed chest and placing the other one to steady herself on his shoulder again._

_“That better?” she asks._

_“Much better,” he tries. He’s not used to this, and he’s not completely certain he’s comfortable with going through with this, but the bulge in his pants seems to speak otherwise._

_“Lemme help you with that,” she says, reaching down and tugging on his belt. Charlie finds himself unable to stop her, and he isn’t even sure he wants to anymore. Dee offering to help him remove his pants flips a switch in his brain, and it’s like every instinct he’s ever had about avoiding sex and keeping his body to himself have completely disappeared from his mind._

_It should concern him how little time it takes for Dee to remove his belt, and it should concern him even more how quickly he finds himself reaching down for his zipper before she can even reach it. But it doesn’t._

_“I got it,” he tells her, unzipping them as he talks to demonstrate the urgency laced in his tone. He begins pushing them down his thighs, and kicks them off his feet._

_Dee, who was previously sitting beside him watching this entire charade with a strong air of arousal coating her demeanor, now proceeds to crawl into his lap and lean back in to resume kissing him. Charlie responds eagerly, squeezing her breasts in his sweaty, shaking hands as he kisses her with even more hunger than he did before._

_“You’re so hot,” he blurts as he breaks from her momentarily._

_Dee laughs throatily, a cocky, chuckle that lifts the muscles of her face into a dimpled smile that Charlie finds unfathomably beautiful._

_“Yeah, I get that a lot,” she responds with another rich, deep burst of laughter that sounds so genuinely, organically like her that Charlie just wants to keep it for himself to play over and over again until his ears get sick of the sound._

_They continue to kiss as his hands travel further down her sides, and he pulls her in closer. His hands close around her back to cup the curves of her ass, and he feels the pockets of her skin-tight jeans. He squeezes her ass cheeks to convey a desperate curiosity for what lies underneath, and a small part of him realizes that if he eggs her on too much then whatever happens as a result will likely be his responsibility as well as hers. But that doesn’t stop him from letting out a throaty moan as she begins grinding slowly, thoroughly on his crotch. He’s never felt something so good in his life. She leans to the side, breathing hotly into his ear._

_“You want me to take my pants off?”_

_Before he has the chance to even respond, she begins to take the cartilage of his ear between her teeth and nibble softly as she slowly trails her other hand down his chest to palm at his dick. His eyes close and another moan slips out of his mouth, as his grands grip onto the curves of her ass even harder._

_“Yeah, I want you to,” he finds himself saying. “Fuck, here-”_

_He reaches for Dee’s zipper, and clumsily fumbles with the fabric until Dee’s hands land on top of his and gently guide his hands down her zipper until it’s off, finally off, and she’s helping him slide her pants off her body. God. Charlie doesn’t even know how to respond to the sight of Dee’s slender, beautiful legs on full display for him. All his normal reactive functions are abandoning him, and he’s left ogling at her open-mouthed._

_“You’re so beautiful,” he blurts, unthinking, words just spilling right off his tongue. Dee stops, looks almost caught off guard, like she wasn’t prepared for him to say anything remotely close to that at all. But Charlie isn’t trying to be kind. It’s just the truth._

_A rosy blush begins to tint her cheeks, and Charlie finds her reaction absolutely adorable. She begins to turn away from him, biting her lip, hiding her smile, but Charlie finds himself automatically shaking his head at her bashfulness and reaching for her shoulders, barely realizing what he’s saying._

_“No, no, no, don’t be like that, it’s true,” he whines playfully as he pulls her back in slowly, clumsily, rubbing her shoulders gently._

_Dee chuckles softly, shaking her head. “Stop,” she says with a failed attempt to contain her grin, like she absolutely doesn’t want him stop._

_“No, I won’t stop, cause you are,” Charlie banters back in response, caressing the back of her hair and pulling her back in for another kiss._

_Dee responds eagerly, deepening the kiss and pressing her body ever closer to his, grinding on the top of his crotch as she runs her hands up and down his chest. Charlie feels a heat, a fierce, burning desire, pooling at the pit of his stomach, and he begins to feel tingling sensations of pleasure all up and down his entire body. A hunger gnaws at him, a ravenous, all-consuming hunger that overrides all of his senses and leaves him with nothing but a churning river of euphoria coursing rapidly throughout his body. It possesses him, controlling all his motions like a master to its puppet. He surges forward, gripping the edge of Dee’s underwear tightly and blindly pulling down at the material as to insist her to remove them as quickly as possible. She complies almost immediately, scooting back off his lap and kicking off the material until Charlie reaches down between her legs and finishes the task for her. He moves up and hovers over her, pressing his forehead against hers for a moment to rest and kissing her temple before pulling back once again to admire the raw, pure, soul-aching beauty of her body that leaves him absolutely speechless. He’s never so much as halfway wanted to have sex with a girl until now, and now that he is in the arms of the girl he loves the most- shit did he just think that?, he never wants to let her go. Having Dee with him here in this moment, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever felt- he’s never felt this way before, not even close- and he wants to feel like this for the rest of his life._

___

 

Ever since then, Charlie hasn’t once followed the waitress over to her apartment, nor even considered waiting for her at the coffee shop about a quarter mile walk from the bar that she always stops at every Wednesday morning before 10. And he hasn’t even wanted to.

In the past, the thrill of the chase is what has always kept him on his feet; the prospect of getting what he couldn’t have is what has always propelled him forward towards his pursuits of the waitress in spite of anything she might have said or done otherwise. But the problem is, Charlie can’t apply this theory to Dee because if anything, now he wants her even more than before.

What doesn’t help the situation any is her uncharacteristic quietness and apathy that she’s displayed all week, seemingly getting worse each day. Charlie didn’t realize how much he depended on her constant snipping and chiming in of conversations with the guys to feel balanced, to feel even, until she stopped doing it altogether. And now it’s all he wants back from her. The withdrawn, subdued version of Dee worries him more than he’d ever want to admit, and he isn’t even sure why. Or what it is that made her loud barking and yelling toward them feel so comfortable and familiar to him only once she took it away.

He misses the Dee that would fight back, the Dee that would dish shit out as soon as shit was dished to her. This Dee is _wrong,_ it isn’t normal, and Charlie doesn’t know how to fix it. The last time Dee began to fall into a depressive slump, he and the gang devised an elaborate prank to pull her back that resulted in psychological damage so severe it began to manifest in every single temper tantrum Dee threw afterwards. That tactic might have shocked her out of her pitiful stupor, but it did nothing to assuage her emotional instability; if anything, it only aggravated it further.

But this? This timid, tiny shell of her former self that can’t even make eye contact with Charlie has him worried that Dee is broken in a far worse way this time, and has him wondering if the damage he inflicted can ever be undone.

____

 

“Whatcha reading there?” Mac asks a highly engrossed Frank who’s hunched over a barstool scrutinizing a somewhat recent newspaper. Dennis instantly looks up from what he’s doing and turns his gaze over to Frank.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Frank responds tersely, not even looking up from his newspaper, “but I’m readin’ about the real estate stock market. I’m trying to decide whether now’s the time to invest in a property.”

“Not my business? Frank, I can be your lefthand man in investing. You know how good Dennis and I are with real estate handling,” Mac insists, a strong air of desperation radiating off of him. Charlie can practically smell it all the way from the other side of the bar where he’s wiping the booths.

Dennis opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, but before he can get a word out Frank jumps on his case. “Mac, your real estate sellin didn’t do _shit_ for us last time we tried this. This time I’ve got Dennis helping me because he’s got a better way with people. Plus, we can’t have too many people gettin involved or else it’ll get messy.”

Mac’s mouth hangs open like a fish, and he flounders to get his words out. “What are you talking about? I single handedly did all the work last time. _I_ was the one that got the couple to buy that house! You can’t sell properties worth of shit because you don’t know how to talk to people in a way that doesn’t make them feel threatened, and Dennis can’t do it either cause he can’t avoid sounding like a sexual predator without the salt to his sweet to balance him out.”

“Well, according to Dennis, your _salt_ got a little too savory last time, because that broad almost got us all _arrested_ for the shit you were spewing to her. You know how many strings I had to pull to settle that suit?” Frank asks him agitatedly.

Mac looks over to Dennis, crystal clear hurt in his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re blackballing me here, dude.”

Dennis sighs. “Mac, look buddy, it isn’t personal, okay? Frank and I together just have something important to success in the business world that you just don’t quite have. It’s the it factor. It’s not something that’s taught, or learned. It’s innate. It’s apart of your natural behavioral makeup.”

“Yeah, it’s the _it_ factor,” Frank echoes in agreement.

“It’s not like we fault you for not having it,” Dennis continues. “Because you can’t control it, you either have it or you don’t. And you just happen to be one of those people who don’t.”

Mac throws his hands up in the air. “Great. Now I’m getting all my great selling skills put to shame and my talents wasted once again. Who was the one that sold that house? I don’t think it was your ‘What can we do to put you in this house?’ or your creepy ‘I want to make this a good experience for you’ bullshit. I think it was my intolerance to anything less than a cold, hard ‘yes’ that sold that goddamn house!”

“But that’s exactly the problem with you!” Frank exclaims. “You’re too forceful.”

“Yeah, the whole point of the it factor is that you don’t make the clientele feel _forced_ into buying your product,” says Dennis. “That defeats the whole purpose, that’s killing the art. The art is that you make it sound so appealing to them they’d feel ashamed with themselves if they _didn’t_ buy it.”

“Yeah, you can’t corner ‘em into giving in, because then they’re not only gonna resent you, they’re gonna talk shit about you and your product to all their business colleagues and friends, which’ll significantly decrease your likelihood of selling your product. Then those people’ll blab to all _their_ business partners, and before you know it you won’t be able to make a dime off it,” says Frank.

“And I think we both know that you quite literally cornered that poor couple into buying the house on the basis that you’d most likely, probably, molest the guy’s wife if they so much as thought about saying otherwise,” Dennis tells him pointedly.

“Oh come on, Den, don’t even _pretend_ you weren’t enjoying every second of it, too,” Mac protests angrily. “You were thriving on the fear of that ugly bitch, and it’s not like I would’ve actually slept with her. She was gross, dude, she didn’t even stand a chance. I probably would’ve passed her on to you. And besides, isn’t that the whole point of the business world? To say a bunch of shit that you know full well you aren’t actually going to do to get people to react a certain way?”

Dennis sighs. “Mac, you’ve got it backwards. That theory only works when people _want_ things, not when you threaten the safety of their lives. Besides, that woman was far too old for me anyway. I would’ve gotten wrinkles just from kissing her. You, on the other hand, I feel like would’ve loved it. Isn’t sleeping with old women and then incessantly denying it like totally your thing?”

Charlie finds himself walking away from his booths and chiming into the conversation.

“Yeah, dude, you’ve slept with some _gross_ women. I’m surprised you don’t have like chlamydia or mouth herpes or anything.”

Dennis snorts in agreement while Mac furrows his eyebrows at him. “Shut up, Charlie, no one asked you. At least I don’t stalk women for a living to the point of receiving multiple death threats and restraining orders from them and still structuring your entire life schedule around theirs.”

At this, Dee looks up at Charlie.

In the past, Charlie has never let the gang’s criticism deter him from pursuing the waitress. If anything, it’s only pushed him further because the more they criticized him, the more he seemed to want her because she became some sort of symbol of proof that he could get someone to them. The problem is that she only stayed a hypothetical to him, and never became a concrete. And Charlie lost himself in his dreams of what could be, never stopping to consider the reality.

But now, for possibly the very first time, he feels disgusted at himself when the gang says her name.

“Uh, I’ll have you know, actually, that I haven’t contacted her once or followed her home in 7 days.” The words are out before he even realizes he’s spoken.

Frank puts down his newspaper and turns toward him, and Dennis and Mac are wide-eyed. Charlie doesn’t even look at Dee. He’s too afraid to.

“Why?” is the first thing asked afterwards, by Mac. Frank is at a loss for words, and Dennis’s face instantly plants a seed of worry in Charlie’s chest. His eyes are squinted, and he almost looks like he’s calculating something, trying to piece things together. Which is something he is so incredibly good at doing it’s a fault.

“I-I dunno,” Charlie responds,unable to put his words together. Why did he have to run his mouth? Why did he have to explain himself, join this meaningless, stupid conversation?

“I just haven’t. I haven’t seen her around. She’s- Guys, I think she’s dead, actually-”

“Bullshit, guys, are you buying this?” Mac exclaims with incredulity. “What was it this time? Did she threaten to call the cops on you again?”

“That’s it!” Frank interjects. “She threatened to have you arrested for violating your restraining order, didn’t she? Charlie, you’ll go to jail.” He laughs, clapping his hands. “She’s finally done it. She’s finally gotten you off her back cause you fucked up one too many times!”

Mac joins him in on the laughter, pointing at Charlie. “Look at his face, Frank, that’s totally it! That bitch must’ve gotten you good, dude. I’m sure she knows as well as us you wouldn’t last a day in prison. They’d bend your ass over so quick you’d rip in two before they even got your tag number.”

“Ew, Mac, gross,” says Dee from behind the bar, sounding genuinely disgusted.

Frank laughs and ignores her, standing up from his stool. “Charlie, what are you gonna do with your life now that the waitress has finally put her foot down and gotten you off her back? You gonna find some new broad to stalk or what? I’ll take you to the strip club tonight to get started, drinks on me. But don’t expect me to pay for your lap dance.”

He and Mac laugh heartily at this together, Frank putting a hand on Mac’s shoulder for support.

Charlie feels anger boiling under his skin, and confusion at the fact that he’s so angry at all. Why does he suddenly care so much about being a stalker? He’s never used that word for it in the past, much less taken so much offense at being  called one. He’s more so perceived his behavior toward her as intense emotional investment, but now that he no longer feels that burning drive, that desire, to chase after her anymore, he’s beginning to see his behavior towards her for what it really was: stalking. And he doesn’t know how to control all this anger he’s having at allowing himself to be the butt of his friends’ jokes about it for all these years.

“I don’t need your pity drinks, Frank, and I’m not a stalker,” Charlie blurts out angrily, silencing everyone in the room once again.

“Since when do you care about whether or not you’re stalking her? Charlie, it’s like a sport to you, it’s your entire life. What could she have possibly said to you to change your mind this drastically?” Dennis asks.

“I don’t know, man!” Charlie responds frustratedly. “She didn’t say anything. I just stopped.” His eyes flit over to Dee before he can control himself, and his heart plummets when he sees that she’s staring down at the ground, standing still.

Dennis catches this. He turns his gaze over to Dee as well, and Charlie isn’t sure what it is about Dennis’s impeccable ability to get people to respond to him, but Dee slowly looks back up and makes eye contact with Dennis, a most unreadable expression displayed on her face.

“Dee, you’ve been awfully quiet about this. What do you think about Charlie no longer deciding to stalk the woman he’s been madly in love with for the past 10 years?”

Charlie catches something shift in her eyes when Dennis says the words “madly in love,” and he isn’t sure what it is but something about her look seems to pierce him square in the chest as sharp as an arrow.

“Why should I care? Cause I don’t,” says Dee, eyebrows raised in a kind of falsified calm. This gesture is actually slightly comforting to Charlie because it’s something that the old Dee would do every time she was put on the spot.

“But, objectively speaking, I think it’s great that Charlie’s no longer stalking the waitress. That poor girl finally deserves a moment’s peace, don’t you think?”

Frank and Mac nod in agreement, and Charlie averts his gaze down to the ground in shame. A wave of hot embarrassment washes over him, and he cannot find the words to defend himself.

Dennis continues to look at her. Charlie wonders if he’s scanning her face for any secret signals she might be sending or any indicators of jealousy in her expression. Then he realizes that it’s stupid of him to think about her feeling this way, and that’s his own projection making its way into his speculation of what Dennis might be doing. Dennis is probably just looking at her because he’s surprised she hasn’t chimed in more frequently during the conversation or tried nosing her way into Frank’s latest flipping house scheme like she has in the past, _nothing_ to do with her or Charlie. Nothing.  

But then Dennis turns his gaze from Dee right back to Charlie, and the second those cold, calculating, icy blue eyes hit his own, it’s like a switch flips in his brain.

“Well, at least I don’t go jumping from guy to guy like a cheap, low-class whore on the streets,” he fires back at Dee, before he even realizes what he’s saying. And as soon as the words are out, he feels his entire chest drop like it was tied to a metal weight.

The only indicator that what he said affects Dee at all is the slight wobbling of her chin and the air of anger that begins to cloud her eyes. Charlie’s stumped on how he’s able to read her this well at all, and if it has anything to do with their physical intimacy together. Is it true, that you feel like you know someone better and emotionally connect with them on a deeper, more spiritual level after you’ve had sex with them? Charlie wouldn’t have known up until now, and now he’s scared he’s going to find out in the cruellest way possible.

“Oh, really? Well that’s rich coming from the guy who sleeps in the same bed as his maybe, could-be father, and who fixates on one woman so strongly he’s banned from almost everywhere in town because of her,” Dee snarls back, and while her words hit Charlie like a pang in his side, he can’t help but feel, oddly enough, comforted somehow that at least she’s fighting back. Fighting back is a sign of the old her, and arguing with Dee is what he’s used to, what feels normal to him. But at the same time, something still doesn’t feel right. Up until now, Charlie has never passed up the chance to bicker with her, even if the subject of conversation held little to no relevance to him. But now the fighting almost feels wrong to him, like after what happened between the two of them talking to each other that way just isn’t right.

Charlie wonders if the only reason he ever got so comfortable arguing with her in the first place is because it was the kind of attitude the guys subconsciously compelled him to display toward her. In which case, now he would have to fend off his every instinct to yell at her or fire horrible insults at her if he truly wanted to change his attitude. But he can’t. They’re Charlieanddee, and Charlieanddee is all screaming, and fighting, and saying the worst and most terrible, soul-crushing things possible to the other in an endless competition for emotional dominance. Right? Not arguing with Dee about every little thing, actually treating her civilly, is like exploring uncharted waters, and Charlie is about as familiar with cardinal navigation as Frank is with taking things slow with women.

Mac and Frank join Dennis in staring at Charlie, and he feels an ever familiar, intense pressure building up in his chest-

“At least I don’t whore myself out to every barely-noncriminal guy that comes along just to finance my next pack of cigarettes,” Charlie hisses back angrily, his frustration building up like a volcano inside him ready to explode. “Face it, Dee. You’re a failed life, and everybody knows it.” Yelling hurtful, horribly ugly words at her is far more familiar to him than the strange, distant silence they’ve been displaying each other for the past week, and Charlie doesn’t think he can handle another second of that suffocating silence. He _has_ to yell at her, has to fight fire with fire, because without fighting they have nothing.

Dee blinks a few times in shock, like Charlie’s words hit her harder than she expected. But if she feels truly wounded by what he said, she doesn’t show it. The others, on the other hand, fully immersed in the conversation, are all staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at Charlie. Normally, Dennis or Mac would be the one to say these things, to which the other members of the gang would merely echo in agreement, Charlie barely even realizing what he’d be agreeing to. It’s just what he’s used to. He’s a follower, a shadow, saying whatever necessary to please Dennis or Mac to keep his job. He doesn’t even remember the last time he truly felt any authentic, genuine disdain for Dee that wasn’t the other guys pressuring him into agreeing, and he can’t even tell the difference anymore between Dennis and Mac’s genuine contempt for her attitude versus their thinly veiled projections of their own personal problems.

Charlie realizes a few seconds too late that the words he’s just said hold more power than any of them anticipated not because of what they contain, but because they came from _him_.

“Failed life? I’m a failed life?” Dee’s scarily calm, eyebrows raised above her hairline and lips pulled into the tightest, most strained smile he’s ever seen.

“That’s funny, Charlie. You wanna talk about a failed life? Try on this for size: all you’ve ever been in life is a failed abortion who couldn’t even be bothered to amount to anything to make up for ruining your mother’s life.”

Her words, spoken with such concentrated and pinpointed vice, reach out like tendrons wrapping tightly around Charlie’s chest, squeezing to the point where he can’t even breathe.

He thinks he hears a gasp coming from Mac, but before he can even process to words, begin to put them to bed in his brain, she’s continuing-

“And even if you did try, she wouldn’t even care. Cause she’s a failure just like you are and a drunk, working in the only line of work dirtier than yours.”

Without another word, or even waiting for a reaction from anyone, Dee turns away from the rest of the gang and storms off to the back of the bar, slamming the office door closed behind her with a loud bang.

Feeling his resolve crumple into a thousand tiny little pieces, Charlie stares at the door barely able to contain his composure. He turns around to look at the gang, but everyone’s eyes are still glued in equal shock to the back door.

Dennis, the first to break the silence, whistles lowly.

“Wow,” says Mac, eyes wide and turning to look at Charlie. The moment Mac’s eyes land on him, Dennis’s and Frank’s follow, and once all three of them are staring him down Charlie feels his chest begin to ignite with a sort of impossible burning pain, and he feels his cheeks begin to redden in shame.

Before Dennis, Mac, or god forbid Frank can say anything else, Charlie feels himself attempt to force out a chuckle that barely sounds human even to his own ears and stutters, “That’s . . . That’s just . . . That’s not even, I mean I’m not technically a-” He shakes his own head, back and forth. Back and forth. If he shakes it enough times, her words will become unsaid and lose all meaning. Deny, deny, deny.

“Guys, you know, I don’t think she really meant all that-”

“Uh, I _really_ think she did,” argues Mac, pointedly.

“Yeah, she kinda like really hit home on you, man. Right in that sweet spot,” Dennis agrees.

“Yeah, I did not see that coming,” says Mac.  
Charlie, still sputtering weak, feeble defenses but unable to keep track of what exactly it is he’s saying, ends up following her into the office while his anger rises higher by the second.

“You wanna talk about failing your parents?” he exclaims loudly as he bursts open the door and startles Dee, making her jump and grab her chest. Is her makeup smeared under her eyes? It’s hard for Charlie to see, because whenever he gets angry his vision, and his judgement, begin to blur severely, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling furiously determined to win this conversation.

He quickly remembers her heart condition at the sight of her grabbing her chest, and for a moment he is stricken by a flash of guilt before he remembers just how deeply her words cut him, and how angry he feels in this moment. So blinded by rage, he continues.

“You were a mistake, too, Dee. Your parents didn’t even _want_ you. They never asked for twins, what parents ask for twins? I think we all know they only wanted a boy, not a girl, so they kept you around out of pure obligation. It’s the same thing in the bar with us now. You’re nothing but a liability, Dee, and you’ll never be anything more!” He’s screaming now, and a feeling of sick satisfaction washes over him when Dee appears to cower away from him, backing up and folding her arms across her chest.

“And the only reason we’ve kept you around this long is because of Dennis,” Charlie finishes, voice lower in a similar calm that Dee’s took on earlier.

Hurt flashes across Dee’s face for the smallest moment, mouth agape and eyes widened, but it vanishes as quickly as it appears and her blue eyes narrow back down into bitter disdain to effectively restore the ice cold demeanor that she had before.

“You wanna talk about _not being wanted_ around the bar, Charlie? The only reason you’re here at all is because Frank’s too stingy to hire an actual janitor to clean up our shit, and you can’t read your paychecks so he pays you less than minimum wage. Not to mention your goddamn illiteracy would have gotten you fired dozens of times over by now if you worked for anyone other than that raving lunatic!” she exclaims, eyes pointed up at the ceiling and her hands thrown out in rage by the end of her tirade.

“Don’t talk about Frank that way! You’re just a gangly, bony whore who’s so desperate to make an extra buck that she’ll bang any living, breathing creature that walks as long as his wallet has enough money to pay her rent.”

“I banged you, if that says anything about how low my standards can fall,” Dee retaliates nastily.

The blow hits Charlie harder than he expected, but to be fair, he kind of did set himself up for that.

 _React. React, react,_ _react!_ his mind commands him maniacally,  rage overpowering all his other senses once again.  
“The only reason I could get it up with you at all is because I was picturing the waitress the entire time,” he blurts out, unthinking. It isn’t true, in fact it couldn’t be further from the truth. The more time that passes since he’s had sex with Dee, the clearer it becomes to him just how badly he wanted it before it even happened. But Dee has been nothing but terrible to him since they slept together, and if she could cross the line then so can he.

She breathes in sharply, almost like what Charlie said actually strikes a nerve, but then she proceeds to speak with as much vice as her previous sentence, “Oh yeah? Well, you had such little skill I had to fake almost every sound I made. You were like a fifteen year old boy, it was like I was _molesting_ you.”

At this word Charlie feels a violent wave of nausea wash right over him, engulfing him, drowning him. He’s being tossed through the water, limbs flailing for dear life, and Dee is now towering over him with that snide glare of hers. She’s climbing higher, higher, higher, until she passes through the roof and towers on straight to the sun. Maybe she’ll make it there. She probably will.

“You did not, you dirty liar,” he exclaims, but he knows she can sense his confidence is faltering. Words are becoming hard to speak, and he has to bite down on his tongue to keep from stuttering out a storm. “I think we both know I put on a pretty decent performance.” He doesn’t even sound certain saying it. How can he expect Dee to believe it?

“It was the farthest thing from a decent performance, actually,” she responds, not missing a beat. The confidence has began to return to her voice and she straightens her posture to punctuate her point. She’s gained the upper hand in the conversation again, and she knows it.

“In fact,” she continues, “it was so far from a decent performance that I had to hold my breath the entire time. You smelled like you had just rolled around in piles of rotten sewage, and the only reason I didn’t die of suffocation is because you lasted about as long as the end of this sentence.”

Charlie’s memory is hazy that night- he doesn’t remember every little detail, or how long he lasted. All he remembers is the sensation of being with her that made him feel safer than he’d ever felt in years, separated entirely from the pressures of the group, and holding her tightly in his arms feeling like nothing in the entire world could have come in between them.

But he can’t say that.

And he can’t figure out how in spite of how angry he is at her, all he still wants is just to be closer to her, touching her, once again-

_Knock, knock._

Both Dee and Charlie jump in response.

“Charlie? Are you in there, man?” Dennis’s voice calls to him from the other side of the door. “We need you to come finish scrubbing the booths cause we’re about to open.”

Charlie looks at Dee, takes her in for about a second, and then proceeds to do what he does best in these situations.

He runs.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, as always feel free to come talk to me on tumblr in the meantime between updates. Url is lydiastiiles


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